Supreme Court Delivers Final Judgment On Abia Governorship Election

Supreme Court has delivered a final judgment on Abia Governorship Election.

Newsone Nigeria reports that the Supreme Court of Nigeria has affirmed the election of the Abia State Governor, Alex Otti of the Labour Party, Nigeria’s opposition political party.

Justice Uwani Abba-Aji while delivering the judgment on Friday, January 12, 2024, dismissed the appeal against the victory of Otti. She held that the appeal by the PDP lacked merit.

The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Okey Ahiwe, and his counterpart in the All Progressives Congress, APC, Chief Ikechi Emenike, lodged the appeals against Otti, who won his election on the platform of the Labour Party, LP,

Newsone recalls that Nigeria’s electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared that Otti polled 175,466 votes to defeat his closest rival, Ahiwe of the PDP, who scored 88,529 votes in the gubernatorial poll that was held on March 18, 2023.

Dissatisfied with the outcome of the election, both Ahiwe and Emenike of the APC, who came in third, separately challenged it.

However,  the Abia State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal in a judgment delivered on October 6, 2023, dismissed the petitions and upheld Otti’s election victory.

The verdict of the tribunal was affirmed by the Court of Appeal in Lagos, which also dismissed appeals that were entered against Otti by both the PDP and APC candidates.