A’Court Fixes Friday For Ruling On Okowa Vs Ogboru Governorship Election Case

The Court of Appeal, Abuja Division has fixed Friday for judgment in the appeal filed by the All Progressives Congress and its governorship candidate, Chief Great Ogboru against the reelection of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the March 9, governorship election in Delta state.

Registrar I of the appellant court, Mrs Tugai Ali, in a terse statement announced that the case with suit number CA/B/EPT/GOV/01/2019 is listed for judgement on Friday, 15, November, 2019 at 9:am in the Court of Appeal Abuja Division.

Recalls the five-member panel of the appellate court led by Justice Uzo Ndukwe-Anyanwu had earlier reserved judgment after all counsel adopted and argued their brief of argument in the appeal.

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, Peoples Democratic Party and Independent National Electoral Commission are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents in the appeal case respectively.

APC and its candidate, Ogboru are seeking to upturn the decision of the Delta State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which affirmed Okowa’s second term reelection as governor of Delta State.

INEC had declared Okowa and PDP winner of the March 9 governorship election in Delta State, haven garnered majority of the lawful votes cast in the election.

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But the appellants in 37 grounds of appeal filed by their counsel, Nicholson Ichekor, asked the Court of Appeal to set aside the entire judgment of the tribunal on the grounds that the tribunal erred in law when it dismissed their appeal for lacking in merit.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) had reported that the three-man panel led by Justice Suleiman Belgore, had in September dismissed Ogboru and APC’s petition against the return of Governor Okowa on grounds that the petitioners failed to prove the cases of irregularities and malpractices claimed in their petition.

However, in the appeal against the decision of the tribunal, Ogboru and APC argued that the lower court erred in law when it relied on the issue of over-voting instead of allocation of votes as canvassed in their petition to dismiss their petition.

The appellants in urging the court to nullify Okowa’s election claimed that in some polling units, the total number of votes cast at the election exceeded the total number of voters who were accredited to vote, adding that there was non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act in relation to accreditation of voters.

However, in response to the appeal, Okowa and the PDP prayed the Court of Appeal to dismiss Ogboru and APC’s appeal for being incompetent and unmeritorious.

In their brief of argument by Mr Damien Dodo, SAN, and Mr Akinlolu Kehinde, SAN, for Okowa and PDP respectively, the respondents submitted that the appellants failed to prove their allegations of over-voting and non-compliance with the Electoral Act.

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The respondents claimed that they have led cogent, credible and reliable evidence to show that they won the governorship election held on March 9 in Delta.

They submitted that the appellants, on the other hand, failed to prove how their claims of over-voting and non-compliance substantially affected the results of the election.