The decision on the appeal lodged by Murtala Ajaka, the Social Democratic Party's (SDP) gubernatorial candidate in the 2023 Kogi State election, challenging the decision of the State Election Petition Tribunal to confirm Ahmed Ododo, the All Progressives Congress's (APC) election as the state's elected leader, has been postponed by the Abuja-based Court of Appeal. On Thursday, a panel of three appeal justices postponed rendering a verdict until a later date to be announced to the parties following the acceptance of all papers submitted in the case. In his motion to affirm Ajaka's election as governor of Kogi State, Pius Akubo, SAN, who represented the appellants, asked the court to vacate the decision of the Kogi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal. Akubo claims that there was a major injustice in the Tribunal's decision to uphold Ododo's election.
He claimed a miscarriage of justice had occurred when the Tribunal excluded the testimony of the first petitioners' witness (PW1). Overvoting tainted the election in three LGAs of Kogi state, he claims, and the appellants have proven it. If the election had been run correctly according to the Electoral Act, he said, Ajaka would have won. He asserted that the second respondent was unable to run for office because he had submitted false documents to the INEC, citing Section 134(1)(3) of the Electoral Act. To Akubo, the question of the second respondent's qualifications should not be considered a pre-election matter, and he begged the court to reverse the Tribunal's judgement and declare Ajaka the winner of the Kogi state governorship election that took place on November 11, 2023.
In his own submission, Kanu Agabi, SAN, who also adopted the briefs submitted by INEC, asked the court to reject Ajaka's and his party's appeal on the grounds that it was without substance. He said the appellants' case was flawed due to internal contradictions and went on to say that the Appeal Court had ruled that a petition should be stricken out if its reasons were contradictory or otherwise not compatible with the reliefs sought. There is no evidence, according to Agabi, since the petitioners' evidence was so inadequate. Aside from claiming that the petitioners failed to phone any polling unit agents among the 25 witnesses they did call, he also stated that the petitioners had only contacted 25 of the scores named.
Additionally, Agabi said that PW1 is unable to testify in an election petition because she failed to submit a witness deposition in a timely manner, as is mandated by law. In his own submission on Ododo's behalf, Joseph Daudu, SAN, stated that the Tribunal did not admit any evidence from PW1 since he did not preload his witness statement. Daudu argued that the Tribunal correctly excluded PW1's evidence since it was deemed inadmissible. He further stated that the appellants had not provided sufficient evidence to support their claim of overvoting in their petition. He further argued that his client's forgery charges were pre-election matters, which the Supreme Court had already addressed in its ruling on Gbagi's appeal against INEC, and he urged the court to reject the charges against his client.
Daudu said that the petitioners' citation of Section 137 of the Electoral Act regarding over-voting claims was irrelevant to the petition and that the appellants had failed to show the over-voting accusation. He begged the court to reject Ododo's appeal and uphold the Tribunal's decision to confirm his election. The APC's Emmanuel Ukala, SAN, argued that the petition was incompetent and urged the Appeal Court to reject it, lending credence to Daudu's claims. In their 31-point appeal, Ajaka and his party are arguing that they should be recognised as the legitimate winners of the governorship election that took place on November 11, 2023.
The appellants are requesting the court to overturn the decision of the Kogi State Election Petition Tribunal, which was presided over by Justice Ado Yusuf Birnin Kudu. They also want the testimony of their first witness, PW1, and all the documents they submitted back into the records of the Tribunal, which were removed. In addition, the appellants are requesting that the Appeal Court rule that Ododo lacked the necessary qualifications to run for governor of Kogi State and that all votes cast for him and the APC were invalid.
You may remember that on May 27, the tribunal upheld Ododo's (APC) victory in the Kogi governorship election that took place on November 11, 2023. The three-judge panel of judges concluded that the petition lacked merit and rejected it. The tribunal found that the SDP and Ajaka did not provide sufficient evidence to support their claims of overvoting and failure to comply with the Electoral Act, 2022. In a unanimous ruling, the panel determined that every piece of witness testimony presented was flawed and presented by incompetent individuals.
Furthermore, it concurred with the respondents' arguments that the forgery claims made in the petition should have been brought up fourteen days after the documents were sent to INEC since they were pre-election matters. Ododo of the APC was proclaimed victorious in Kogi's off-cycle election that took place on November 11, 2023, according to INEC.