OKOWA FLOORS OGBORU AT APPEAL COURT
OGHENETEJIRI NYERHOVWO
Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja on Friday, November 15, 2019 dismissed the appeal filed by Chief Great Ogboru, candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC)against the election of Senator Ifeanyi Okowa as Governor of Delta State.
A five man panel of the appellate court led by Justice Uzo Ndukwe-Anyanwu, dismissed the appeal on the grounds that it was “completely devoid of merit”.
The court accordingly upheld the decision of the Delta State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which affirmed the declaration of Senator Okowa as lawful winner of the March 9, 2019 governorship election in Delta State.
Chief Ogboru and his party, the APC had approached the appellate court to upturn the decision of the tribunal which returned Dr. Okowa for a second term in office.
It could be recalled that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Senator Okowa and PDP winner of the March 9 governorship election in Delta State, haven garnered majority of the lawful votes cast in the election.
Chief Ogboru and his party, the APC had alleged over-voting and non-compliance with the Electoral Act amongst other irregularities they claimed marred the governorship election in the state.
They then prayed the court to nullify Dr. Okowa’s election and declared them winner or in the alternative order INEC to conduct a fresh election in Delta State, but the Election Petition Tribunal dismissed the prayers.
Chief Ogboru and his party then approached the Court of Appeal to set aside the judgment of the lower court and grant their reliefs.
They predicated the appeal on 37 grounds upon which they asked the Court of Appeal to set aside the entire judgment of the tribunal on the grounds that the tribunal erred in law when it dismissed their appeal for lacking in merit.
Responding to the appeal, Dr. Okowa and his party, the PDP urged the Court of Appeal to dismiss Ogboru and APC’s appeal for being incompetent and unmeritorious.
In their brief of argument by Damien Dodo SAN and Akinlolu Kehinde SAN, for Okowa and PDP respectively, the respondents submitted that the appellants failed to prove their allegations of over voting and non compliance with the Electoral Act.
Delivering judgement, the appellate court agreed with the submissions of the respondents that the appeal lacked merit and ought to be dismissed.
The upper court held that for the decision of a lower court to be set aside, there must be evidence that such judgment was perverted, a condition which the appellants failed to prove in their appeal.
In the lead judgment delivered by Justice Uzo Ndukwe-Anyanwu, the appellate court held that the tribunal was right to hold that the case of the petitioners was unmeritorious because they were able to call just 20 witnesses out of the over 800 polling units where election took place in the state.
In its decision the court noted that the report of the smart card reader the appellants relied on to prove over-voting cannot be given importance over the voter register because the smart card reader is a supplement to the voter register.
According to the judgement, “this court find no merit in the appeal, the appeal failed and the decision of the lower tribunal is hereby affirmed.”
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