VAM News update
THE Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal, on Tuesday, affirmed Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan as the duly elected Senator for Kogi Central senatorial district of Kogi State.
The appellate court affirmed the judgement of the Kogi State National/State Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal, which earlier pronounced Akpoti-Uduaghan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the rightful winner of the February 25 National Assembly elections as against Abubakar Sadiku-Ohere of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who was earlier declared winner of the exercise by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Recall that Sadiku-Ohere, being dissatisfied with the verdict of the Tribunal, had approached the Appeal Court for respite.
But, a three-man panel of Justtices of the appellate court affirmed the judgement of the Tribunal shortly after it dismissed Sadiku-Ohere’s appeal for lacking in merit.
According to the superior court, the appellant failed to provide convincing evidence why the judgement of the Tribunal should be set aside in his favour.
Justice Hamma Barka of the Appeal Court subsequently held that Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of the PDP, having won the majority of lawful votes cast at the poll, is winner of the Kogi Central Senatorial District poll.
VAM News recalls that Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan had contested the initial declaration of Sadiku-Ohere as winner of the election by INEC on the grounds that the electoral commission failed to input election results from Ajaokuta, Adavi and Okehi local government areas of the senatorial district, whose votes gave her the winning margin above Sadiku-Ohere.
The rejected and excluded results were then added to the overall results by the Tribunal, which then revealed that the PDP candidate won the majority of lawful votes cast at the poll.
The appellate court in rejecting the APC candidate’s appeal held that INEC, which has the duty of conducting and collating election results, failed to provide reasons why the results of the elections in the affected local government areas were rejected and excluded from the overall results in the first place.