Supreme Court reserves judgement on PDP’s appeal against Abia governor’s election

The Supreme Court has reserved judgement in an appeal filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Okey Ahiwe, challenging the election of Governor Alex Otti of Abia State.

A five-member panel of judges headed by Inyang Okoro reserved the judgement on Wednesday after taking final arguments from parties, according to a statement by Kazie Uko, the spokesperson to Governor Otti which was forwarded to PREMIUM TIMES.

Presentation of arguments

The PDP’s legal team was led by the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN.

The PDP’s arguments were, however, presented by a member of the party’s legal team, Uche Ihediuwa, also a SAN.

Mr Ihediuwa, while presenting the PDP’s arguments, alleged that Mr Ahiwe was short-changed with over 84,000 votes during the collation of the governorship election results.

The lawyer alleged that the PDP agent was chased away at the collation centre and, consequently, was not obliged to a copy of the results as required by law.

He claimed that Mr Ahiwe had to approach officials of the All Progressives Congress (APC), before accessing result sheets and then discovered the alleged malpractices.

But the leader of Governor Otti’s legal team, John Owonikoko, SAN, asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the appeal for want of merit.

Mr Owonikoko informed the court that Mr Otti polled over 174,000 votes in the 18 March 2023 governorship election to emerge victorious, arguing that even if the purported 84,000 short-changed votes were added to PDP, the appellants would still not win.

The lawyer claimed that a purported result sheet produced by the PDP before the State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal was rejected because it could not be read by the witness of the party.

In his argument, the leader of the Labour Party’s legal team, Onyeche Ikpeazu, SAN, argued that the appeal by the PDP and its candidate was lacking in merit given that 108,000 results from Obingwa Local Government Area result relied upon by the PDP “bore” the stamp of ward collation agent instead of local government collation agent as stipulated by the law.

Judgement reserved

After taking the arguments from the parties, the judge, Mr Okoro announced that judgement on the appeal had been reserved and that the date of delivery would be communicated to the parties in the matter.

Background

The Independent National Electoral Commission had, on 22 March 2023, declared Mr Otti, the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), as the winner of the governorship election in the state.

He polled 175,466 votes to defeat his closest rival, Mr Ahiwe of the PDP, who scored 88,529 votes in the election.

However, Mr Ahiwe, and his APC counterpart, Ikechi Emenike, separately challenged the victory at the Abia State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in Umuahia.

Messrs Ahiwe and Emenike, in their petitions, contended that Mr Otti was not qualified to run for the election on the basis that he was not a member of the LP at the time of the exercise.

They also claimed that Mr Otti did not win the majority of lawful votes cast and that there were irregularities at the poll.

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But delivering judgement on the appeal on 6 October, a three-member panel of judges dismissed all petitions by Mr Ahiwe, and his party, the PDP, against the election of Mr Otti.

The Court Appeal in Lagos State, in December 2023, also affirmed Mr Otti’s victory.

Dissatisfied with the rulings of the courts, Mr Ahiwe filed another suit at the Supreme Court.