The Supreme Court has affirmed Senator Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressive Congress (APC) as the duly elected governor of Edo State.
The apex court, in its unanimous judgment on Thursday, held that Asue Ighodalo and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) failed to establish the non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2022 and over-voting, which they alleged in their petition.
The court, therefore, dismissed the appeal filed by the PDP and its governorship candidate, challenging the declaration of Senator Monday Okpebholo of the APC.
According to the Supreme Court, it found no reason to set aside the concurrent judgments of both the Court of Appeal and the Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which returned Okpebholo as the valid winner of the governorship election.
It held that the Appellants failed to adduce credible and admissible evidence to substantiate their claim that the election was marred by irregularities that included over-voting and substantial non-compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act.
Likewise, the apex court held that the Appellants failed to call relevant witnesses to demonstrate some of the evidence they tendered in support of their case, especially the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines.
It held that some of the proof of evidence, which were tendered from the Bar, was merely dumped on the tribunal without establishing alleged non-compliance in 432 out of a total of 4,519 polling units in the state.
“The Appellant did not satisfactorily discharge the burden of proof placed on him by the law,” the Supreme Court held in its unanimous judgement that was delivered by Justice Garba.
The court ordered parties in the case– the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Okpebholo and the APC to bear their respective costs of litigation.
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