The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja on Thursday affirmed the election of Usman Ododo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the governor of Kogi State.
Muritala Ajaka, the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party(SDP) and his party had filed an appeal before the appellate court on the verdict of the election petitions tribunal that upheld Ododo’s election as declared by Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC)
Handing down its unanimous judgement, the 3-man panel of the appellate court held that the appeal was unmeritorious.
It consequently dismissed the appeal.
All the four issues, identified for determination by the panel, were resolved in favour of the respondents to the suit.
The Court held that the appellants did not substantially prove allegations of over-voting, and certificate forgery, among others, levelled against Ododo and his party.
It would be recalled that the State Returning Officer, Prof Johnson Urama, announced that Ododo polled 446,237 votes, to beat his closest rival, Murtala Ajaka of the SDP, who got 259,052.
Dino Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) also got 46,362 votes.