In an unanimous judgment, the appeal Court sitting in Abuja has affirmed the election of Yahaya Bello as Kogi State’s governor.
The court dismissed the appeals filed by four political parties, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the Action Peoples Party (APP), and the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) challenging the governor’s re-election in the November 2019 governorship poll.
The court dismissed the appeals filed by the political parties and their candidates after they lost at the Tribunal.
In its appeal, APP had claimed that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) unlawfully excluded it from the governorship election in Kogi State.
While ruling on the APP’s appeal, Justice Mohammed Shuaibu dismissed the appeal filed by the party in a unanimous judgment.
He affirmed the decision of the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which dismissed the petition filed by the APP and awarded a cost of N100,000 against the party.
Also, the appellate court dismissed the appeal filed by the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) against Governor Bello’s victory in the November 2019 governorship election.
DPP’s appeal was also dismissed in a unanimous decision while the SDP candidate, Natasha Akpoti, lost her bid to unseat Governor Bello.
In its judgment, the court held that Akpoti could not prove the allegations of corruption and voter intimidation against the governor.
On his part, Engineer Musa Wada of the PDP got his appeal dismissed by the court while incurring a penalty alongside.
Wada was ordered to pay a sum of N100, 000 each to Governor Bello, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and INEC, who were listed as respondents in the appeal.
Recall that on November 18, 2019, INEC returned Bello as the duly elected governor having scored the highest number of votes in the keenly contested poll.
He polled a total of 406,222 votes to beat his closest rival, Wada who scored 189,704 votes and Akpoti who garnered a total of 9,482 votes.
