By Ken Afor
The Supreme Court in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, has dismissed an appeal filed by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Uche Nnaji, to nullify the election of Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State.
The judgment delivered on Friday by a five-member panel of Justices, led by Justice Tijani Abubakar ruled that Nnaji and his party, APC failed to substantiate their claim why governor Mbah’s victory should be nullified.
Justice Abubakar added that the appellants’ argument to upturn Mbah’s victory lacked merit which affected the substantive appeal.
It would be recalled that the Court of Appeal in Enugu on July 18, dismissed Nnaji’s petition.
Referring to the appeal marked: CA/E/E/EP/GOV/EN/01/2023, the court maintained that the submission of the petition by Nnaji’s legal team lacked merit despite affirming the victory of governor Mbah by the Enugu State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal.
It would be recalled that Mbah was declared winner of the March 18, 2023 governorship election after polling 160,895 votes, his closest rival, Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party (LP) polled 157,552 votes.
Frank Nweke Jr., who was a two-time minister contested on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) performed abysmally with 17, 983 votes, Nnaji got 14,575 votes.
Nnaji, dissatisfied with the outcome of the election filed a petition claiming the governor was not eligible to run for the election alleging he presented a forged certificate – National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
Also, Nnaji prayed the tribunal to declare him the winner of the election or order the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a runoff election arguing that Mbah, Edeoga and Nweke failed to get the required number of votes.
The tribunal in its ruling on June 20, dismissed the petition on the premise that it was not filed in compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act 2022.
Again, not satisfied with the ruling the APC headed to the appellate court to set aside the decision of the tribunal.
He urged the appellate court to order the tribunal to hear his petition on its merit, a prayer the court refused on Friday.
