The Supreme Court of Nigeria, yesterday, reserved judgment in an appeal filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Okey Ahiwe, seeking the nullification of the election of Alex Oti as the Governor of Abia State.
The five-man panel of the justices lead by Justice John Inyang Okoro, reserved the judgment till a date to be communicated to parties after taking their final arguments.
The PDP in it’s argument, alleged that Ahiwe was short-changed with over 84,000 votes during the collation of the governorship election results.
The party, had through it’s counsel,
Uche Ihediuwa, SAN, alleged that the agent of the PDP was chased away at the collation center and as such, was not obliged a copy of the results as required by law.
He claimed that his client had to approach the All Progressives Congress (APC) before it could access results sheets and discovered the alleged malpractices.
The governor, in his defense asked the court to dismiss the appeal for wants of merit.
Gov. Otti, represented by Abiodun John Owonikoko, SAN, informed the court that Otti scored over 174,000 votes at the March 18, 2023 governorship election to emerge victorious, adding that even if the purported 84,000 short-changed votes were added to PDP, the appellants would still not win.
He noted that a purported result sheet produced by the PDP before the State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal was rejected because it could not be read by the witness of the party.
Gov. Alex Otti of the Labour Party(LP) was declared the winner of the governorship election in the Abia State by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on 22 March.
He polled 175,466 votes to defeat his closest rival, Ahiwe of the PDP, who scored 88,529 votes.
However, not satisfied with the out come of the election, Ahiwe and the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ikechi Emenike, separately challenged Otti’s victory at the tribunal.
On 6th October 2023, the Tribunal dismissed the petitions by Ahiwe and Emenike and affirmed Otti’s election, which was later affirmed by the Appallate court.
