By Anthony Ochela, Abuja
Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, has upheld the election of Governor Monday Okpebholo.
The Tribunal, sitting at the National Judicial Institute, NJI, in Abuja, yesterday threw out three suits instituted by the Action Alliance, AA, Accord Party, AP, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
In the aftermath of the election of September 21,2024, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had declared that Okpebholo of the APC secured a total of 291,667 votes to defeat his closest rival, Ighodalo of the PDP, who got a total of 247,655 votes.
Dissatisfied with the outcome of the poll, the PDP and its candidate approached the tribunal in the petition marked: EPT/ED/GOV/02/2024, alleging that it was not conducted with substantial compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022.
The three-Member Tribunal in Wednesday’s unanimous judgment held that the petitioners failed to prove their case of over-voting in 320 polling units across the 18 local government areas of the state where election held.
Justice Kpochi who delivered the lead judgment observed that the claims of non-compliance was not proved because relevant witnesses were not called to give evidence of the alleged act of non-compliance.
In proving its claim of alleged over-voting, PDP and Ighodalo had called 19 witnesses including; collation agents and a research expert and tendered polling units results, collation results, the BVAS and other sensitive materials.
“Failure to call polling unit agents, ward agents or other registered voters that witnessed the alleged over-voting”, Kpochi held.
Besides, the court further faulted the petitioners for not speaking to the documents, “since documents does not speak for themselves”, he said, “where no evidence is made, it is not the duty of the tribunal to scrutinise the documents for the petitioners”.
The Tribunal added that, “We are restrained from looking “open them and look at it”.
Explaining further, the Tribunal held to prove allegations of over-voting, a petition must tender three valid documents which are; Voter’s Register, BVAS and the form EC8A ,polling unit result.
“How do you prove over-voting if you don’t know the number of the registered voters”, the chairman asked.
He subsequently dismissed the claim of alleged non-compliance and over-voting made by the petitioners.
The tribunal also dismissed the petition instituted by the Accord Party on so many grounds.
The Tribunal held that the Accord party and its governorship candidate Dr Bright Enabulele made spurious wild weight allegations of thuggery stuffing ballots, harassing and molesting voters but failed to name a single perpetrator.
According to the Tribunal, two petitioners were so inconsistent in their claims with allegations of non compliance with the Electoral Act and calling for nullification of the poll on one hand.
On the other hand, the Tribunal said the same petitioners sought to be declared winners of the election they claimed to have been conducted without compliance with the Electoral Act.
In the final analysis, the tribunal held that there was no meaningful evidence for it to act upon to nullify the election of Okpebholo and APC and subsequently dismissed the petition in its entirety.
The Tribunal also held that the petition, which the Action Alliance filed along with its National Chairman, Adekunle Rufai Omoaje, is devoid of merit as it bordered on pre-election issues.
The petitioners had among other things, alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, excluded its lawful candidate in the governorship election.
They alleged that contrary to various court judgements, the electoral body accepted and recognised a candidate that was not validly nominated by the party.
According to the petitioners, INEC’s failure to publish the name of the rightful candidate of the party for the gubernatorial contest amounted to a substantial non-compliance to provisions of section 134(1) (b) of the Electoral Act.
Besides their contention that Governor Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress, APC, did not secure the majority of lawful votes cast during the election, the petitioners insisted that the exercise was marred by corrupt practices.
They, therefore, prayed for the nullification of the election, a request the panel refused yesterday.
The panel upheld all the preliminary objections that were lodged against the petition.
All the Respondents, including INEC and Governor Okpebholo, had challenged the competence of the petition, stressing that the National Chairman of the AA was bereft of the locus standi to institute the action since he did not participate in the governorship poll.
They equally maintained that the petition was statute-barred as it contained pre-election matters that were beyond the jurisdiction of the tribunal.
AA’s candidate, Mr. Tom Iseghhi-Okojie, had stepped down for governor Okpebholo, a few days before the governorship election.
The panel had on Monday March 3, reserved its verdict after all the parties adopted their final briefs
