The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the election of Governor Monday Okpebholo of Edo State, dismissing the appeal filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Asuerinme Ighodalo, as lacking in merit.
Delivering judgment, a five-member panel led by Justice Mohammed Garba held that the appellants failed to provide credible and admissible evidence to support their claims of electoral malpractice, including over-voting and substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act during the September 21, 2024, governorship poll.
The apex court affirmed the earlier decisions of both the Court of Appeal and the Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which had declared Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the validly elected governor.
Justice Garba, who read the lead judgment, stated that the PDP and Ighodalo failed to prove their allegations or substantiate the claims with relevant witnesses. He noted that many of the documents submitted, including Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines, were merely "dumped" on the tribunal without demonstration or proper linkage to their allegations of irregularities in 432 of the state’s 4,519 polling units.
“The appellants did not satisfactorily discharge the burden of proof placed on them by law,” the court ruled.
Ighodalo had approached the Supreme Court with an appeal marked SC/CV/536/2025, seeking to overturn the May 29 verdict of the Court of Appeal, which had also dismissed his petition against the election outcome.
He claimed that the lower court failed to properly evaluate his case and argued that the poll did not comply with the provisions of the Electoral Act. He asked the Supreme Court to declare him winner of the election on the grounds that he secured the highest number of valid votes.
However, INEC, Governor Okpebholo, and the APC countered the appeal, urging the court to uphold the results as announced by the electoral body.
The Appeal Court, in a judgment delivered by a panel led by Justice M. A. Danjuma, had earlier upheld the May 15 ruling of the tribunal, which validated Okpebholo’s victory and dismissed all petitions challenging his election.
The tribunal, chaired by Justice Wilfred Kpochi, dismissed three petitions — those filed by the PDP and Ighodalo; the Action Alliance (AA) and its national chairman, Adekunle Rufai Omoaje; and the Accord Party (AP) along with its candidate, Dr. Bright Enabulele.
INEC had declared Okpebholo winner of the poll with 291,667 votes, ahead of Ighodalo who polled 247,655 votes.
The petitioners alleged that the election was fraught with irregularities, including faulty result computation in 765 polling units and non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022. They also claimed that INEC failed to serialise and pre-record sensitive electoral materials, which allegedly enabled rigging in favour of the APC.
In their petition, marked EPT/ED/GOV/02/2024, the PDP and its candidate presented 19 witnesses and tendered 153 BVAS machines used in 133 polling units, insisting that manipulation occurred during collation.
But the tribunal held that the petitioners failed to present sufficient and credible evidence. It said many of the witnesses gave hearsay evidence and that the absence of polling unit agents, presiding officers, or voters to testify on alleged irregularities significantly weakened their case.
It also ruled that the BVAS machines tendered were not properly demonstrated to establish claims of over-voting.
The tribunal concluded that the petitioners did not meet the burden of proof, a position affirmed by both the Court of Appeal and ultimately the Supreme Court.
Leave a Reply