Supreme Court affirms Ortom’s election as Benue governor

The Supreme Court has affirmed the election of Samuel Ortom as the governor of Benue State.

In a unanimous judgement, a 7-man panel led by Justice Bode Rhodes Vivour ruled that the appeal by Emmanuel Jime and the All Progressives Congress (APC) lacked merit.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in March 2019 declared Ortom, the governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) winner of the gubernatorial poll.

Ortom polled 434,473 votes to beat his closest rival and candidate of the APC, Emmanuel Jime, who polled 345,155 votes.

The election was first declared inconclusive by INEC due to the margin between the cancelled votes of 121,019 and the 81,554 votes margin between Ortom and Jime.

The supplementary election was held in 204 polling units across 22 Local Government Areas.

But Jime and the APC challenged the result at the governorship election tribunal. The tribunal, however, upheld Ortom’s election on October 7, 2019.

The petitioners subsequently approached the appeal court which upheld the tribunal’s ruling that Ortom was duly elected governor of Benue State.