The Supreme Court, on Tuesday, fixed August 31 to deliver judgments on two separate appeals that are seeking to nullify the election of Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State.

A seven-man panel of Justices of the apex court led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Tanko Ibrahim, okayed the appeals for justice after all the parties adopted their final briefs of argument.

The appeals were brought before the apex court by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its governorship candidate in the state, Musa Wada, and the Social Democratic Party, SDP, and its candidate, Natasha Akpoti.

The appellants alleged that governor Bello of the All Progressives Congress, APC, was not validly elected by the majority of lawful votes cast.
They prayed the Supreme Court to set aside the concurrent judgments of both the Kogi State Governorship Elections Petitions Tribunal and the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which declined to void the return of governor Bello by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as a winner of the gubernatorial contest.

Cited as Respondents in both appeals were INEC, governor Bello, and the APC. Meanwhile, the CJN led panel, dismissed a third appeal that was brought against governor Bello by the Democratic People’s Party, DPP, after it was withdrawn by counsel to the party, Mr M.S. Ibrahim.
The panel stressed that the appeal was a “worthless academic exercise”, noting that the party fielded an underaged candidate that was 31 years old as at the time of the election.

It further awarded a cost of N200, 000 against the DPP. It will be recalled that the tribunal had in a two-to-one split decision on May 23, affirmed governor Bello’s election.

Whereas two Justices of the three-member panel tribunal, dismissed the petition by Wada and the PDP, a third member of the panel gave a dissenting judgment that upheld the petition and ordered a fresh election in Kogi State.

In their majority verdict, Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Kashim Kaigama and a member of the panel, Justice Baraka Wali, held that the petitioners failed to by way of credible evidence, substantiate their allegation that governor Bello’s election was not in substantial compliance with both the Constitution and the Electoral Act.

The duo equally agreed that the petitioners were unable to prove any ground of their petition to warrant the nullification of the outcome of the election.

However, in his dissenting judgment, Justice Ohimai Ovbiagele, upheld the petitioners’ case and nullified election results in seven out of the 21 Local Government Areas in the state.

Justice Ovbiagele went ahead and sacked governor Bello by declaring that he was not the winner of the governorship election, having failed to secure the majority of lawful votes and the required constitutional spread.

Meantime, in a unanimous judgment on July 4, the Court of Appeals in Abuja dismissed all the petitions and upheld the verdict of the tribunal that affirmed governor Bello’s election.

A five-man panel of the appellate court led by Justice Adamu Jauro held that the appeals that were lodged by both the PDP and SDP candidates lacked merit.


INEC had on November 18, declared Bello of the APC as the winner of the Kogi governorship election.
She ordered INEC to conduct a fresh election in seven local governments within three months.

The Returning Officer, Ibrahim Garba, who is the Vice-Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, declared that Bello polled the highest number of votes in the election with 406,222 to defeat Wada of the PDP who scored 189,704 in the election.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vanguardngr.com/2020/08/kogi-governorship-dispute-scourt-slates-august-31-for-judgement/amp/

Fergie001
Same thing with bayelsa tribunal :
Meanwhile, the CJN led panel, dismissed a third appeal that was brought against governor Bello by the Democratic People’s Party, DPP, after it was withdrawn by counsel to the party, Mr M.S. Ibrahim.
The panel stressed that the appeal was a “worthless academic exercise”, noting that the party fielded an underaged candidate that was 31 years old as at the time of the election.

It further awarded a cost of N200, 000 against the DPP. It will be recalled that the tribunal had in a two-to-one split decision on May 23, affirmed governor Bello’s election.

AAA593:

Same thing with bayelsa tribunal :
Meanwhile, the CJN led panel, dismissed a third appeal that was brought against governor Bello by the Democratic People’s Party, DPP, after it was withdrawn by counsel to the party, Mr M.S. Ibrahim.
The panel stressed that the appeal was a “worthless academic exercise”, noting that the party fielded an underaged candidate that was 31 years old as at the time of the election.

It further awarded a cost of N200, 000 against the DPP. It will be recalled that the tribunal had in a two-to-one split decision on May 23, affirmed governor Bello’s election.

OP, You are doing an excellent job...

Thank You again.

fergie001:

OP, You are doing an excellent job...

That settles it.

Thank you Sir.

AAA593:

Thank you Sir.

Thank you again....I am not pre-empting the SC but issues concerning voting, compliance etc. are always hard to prove.

I think GYB will be returned.

This settles the argument, all INEC will do is insert this and the Appeal Court will simply throw away the Tribunal majority judgement.

fergie001:

Thank you again....I am not pre-empting the SC but issues concerning voting, compliance etc. are always hard to prove.

I think GYB will be returned.

Of course he will be returned. I hope those guys that were attacking us have seen DPP supreme court ruling. ANDP case will fly at the court of appeal against Diri

AAA593:

Of course he will be returned. I hope those guys that were attacking us have seen DPP supreme court ruling. ANDP case will fly at the court of appeal against Diri

The case was extremely clear from the outset.

We are all learning.
Let's not make it a I-win, you-lose situation.

After this case, it seems you will be given a SAN title o. You were dogged in this case, Kudos.

fergie001:

The case was extremely clear from the outset.

We are all learning.
Let's not make it a I-win, you-lose situation.

After this case, it seems you will be given a SAN title o. You were dogged in this case, Kudos.

AAA593:

Yes o.........I heard Diri will be swearing-in his Commissioners today?

It is all up to him now.

I trust Buhari he won't let this guy down
He played a huge role last year

fergie001:

Yes o.........I heard Diri will be swearing-in his Commissioners today?

It is all up to him now.

He did that an hour ago

The supreme court has fixed August 31 to deliver judgment on the governorship election of Kogi state.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Yahaya Bello of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the governorship election held in November.

However, Musa Wada, candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) challenged Bello’s victory in court.

In a split judgment of two-to-one to delivered on May 23, 2020, the tribunal affirmed Bello’s election.

But on July 4, the court of appeal dismissed Wada’s appeal and affirmed Bello as governor of the state.

The appellate court also dismissed the appeals filed by the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the Actions Peoples Party (APP) and the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP).

Dissatisfied, the parties had approached the apex court seeking to upturn the judgment of the two lower courts.

Meanwhile, Usman Mohammed, counsel representing DPP, applied to withdraw his appeal after the seven-man panel of the apex court drew his attention to the fact that he had no case because the governorship candidate of the party did not meet the constitutionally required age of 35 as at the time of the election.

The panel led by Ibrahim Muhammad, the chief justice of Nigeria (CJN) consequently struck out DPP’s appeal.

Bello polled 406,222 votes to defeat Musa Wada of the PDP who polled 189,704, and Natasha Akpoti of the SDP, who got 9,482.

The governor won in 12 out of the 21 local government areas of the state, according to results announced by INEC.

TheCable

For those who don't understand what is going on...look at the bolded and correlate with the ANDP judgement in Bayelsa.

Yes, you now know what the Appeal Court will say.

Thank you, SC.

AAA593....Your inauguration into the body of SANs (Senior Advocate of Nairaland) will hold tomorrow.......

THE SUPREME COURT HAS TODAY REAFFIRMED INEC'S POWER TO EXCLUDE UNQUALIFIED CANDIDATES FROM THE BALLOT THROUGH THE KOGI STATE SUPREME COURT JUDGEMENT OVER DPP's EXCLUSION FROM KOGI STATE GOVERNORSHIP POLLS
Lala

Is it possible to score nearly 90% in several local governments?

Hmmm, something wey one woman naked put. APC loses Bayelsa to save Kogi, what an investment.