The State and National Assembly Court of Appeal sitting in Lagos has affirmed the election of Peter Ndubuisi Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as governor of Enugu State.
The Appellate Court on Friday, November 10, in a unanimous decision, resolved all three issues canvassed against the appellant, Edeoga Chijioke Jonathan of the Labour Party in favour of the PDP candidate.
The 3-member panel presided over by Justice Tani Yusuf Hassan held that the appellant failed to prove that the respondent was not qualified to contest the governorship election.
On the allegation of over-voting, Justice Hassan in her lead judgment held that the “Voters’ Register was never placed before the lower tribunal, and that failure to tender the Voters Register before the lower tribunal rendered the appeal inadmissible.
The court held that the testimony of all the witnesses called by the appellant did not prove that there was over-voting in the governorship election.
The Appeal Court consequently dismissed the appeal for lacking in merit and affirmed the judgment of the election petition tribunal, which declared Mbah of the PDP as the winner of the March 18 governorship election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Mbah of the PDP the winner of the March 18 governorship election having polled 160,895 votes.
Edeoga of the LP came second with 157,552 votes, while Frank Nweke of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) polled 17, 983 votes to claim third place.
Dissatisfied, Edeoga and his party had approached the tribunal urging it to disqualify Mbah and declare him the winner of the election, while claiming to have polled the highest valid votes cast.
The petitioners also challenged the candidacy of the governor over an alleged forgery of a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) certificate.
In its judgement, the Enugu state governorship election petition tribunal affirmed Peter Mbah as the duly elected governor of the state.
Delivering judgment, the Governorship election petition tribunal led by Justice Kudirat Akano, dismissed the petition filed by Chijioke Edeoga, of the LP.
The tribunal held that Edeoga and his party failed to prove their case.
The court held that Mbah met the minimum requirements for the election which is a school certificate or its equivalent.
The tribunal rejected Edeoga’s witnesses, adding that the petitioners did not present any admissible evidence to prove that Mbah’s certificate was forged.
The court ruled,
“NYSC discharge certificate is not a qualification for governorship. Assuming that the NYSC discharge certificate of the second respondent as claimed by the petitioners was forged, is the NYSC certificate a qualification to contest for governor in Nigeria according to the constitution? The answer is no.”
