Delta State Governorship Tussle:Appeal Court Dismisses Emerhor's Petition,Reaffirms Okowa's Victory

Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa
Photo:Thisday

The Appeal  court sitting in Abuja,on Thursday,discarded the appeal filed by Olorogun O'tega Emorhor, the governorship candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the April 2015 election.


The appeal filed challenged the election of Ifeanyi Okowa as governor of Delta state.
Delivering its judgment, the Appeal court upheld the ruling of the Delta state Governorship Election Petition in Asaba, the state capital. 

The Election Tribunal on October 26th 2015, declared Okowa of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)  winner of the April governorship election as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). 

Registering his dissatisfaction with the ruling of the state electoral tribunal, Emerhor and his Party,APC, filed a petition to the Appeal court asking the court to dismiss the judgment of the tribunal and order a rerun election. 

According to Daily Trust, Appellants aĺegged electoral fraud and that the election did not substantially comply with the electoral Act 2010.

Appellants formulated 6 issues and 11 grounds of Appeal. In the 11 grounds of appeal, the appellant averred that, “the learned Justices erred in law when they failed to  nullify the election due to substantial non compliance with the Electoral Act, INEC guidelines and over voting in 61% of the polling units in the  state." The appellants also alleged a resort to manual accreditation instead of the mandatory use of card readers. 

This is the second Appeal Court judgment today that affirmed the election of  Okowa as the governor of Delta State.

The Appeal Court also threw out virtually all the cross appeals in the cases. The Court of Appeal had beforehand confirmed the election of Olorogun O'tega Emorhor when his governorship election victory was challenged by  Great Ogboru of the Labour Party (LP).