Supreme court upholds Ododo’s election, dismisses Ajaka’s case

The Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the victory of Usman Ododo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Nov. 11, 2023, governorship election in Kogi.

A five-member panel of the apex court, in a judgement, held that the appeal by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and its candidate, Muritala Ajaka, marked SC/CV/654/2024, was without merit and proceeded to dismiss it.

Justice Sadiq Umar, who authored and read the lead judgement, resolved all three issues identified for determination in the appeal against the appellants.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that a three-member panel of the Appeal Court, in a unanimous judgement delivered by Justice Onyekachi Otisi on July 11, had upheld the decision of the Kogi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.

The appellate court held that the SDP and its governorship candidate, Ajaka, failed to prove the allegations contained in their appeal beyond reasonable doubt as required by law.

The court also dismissed the appeals filed by the Action Alliance (AA) and its governorship candidate, Olayinka Braimoh, and the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and its governorship candidate, Dr. Abdullahi Bayawo, challenging Ododo’s victory.

Justice Otisi, while delivering judgement on the SDP and Ajaka’s appeal, agreed with the election petition tribunal which sat in Abuja.

The judge said the tribunal was right to have expunged the evidence of the first prosecution witness (PW-1) called by the petitioners on the grounds that the evidence tendered was documentary hearsay.

She stated that witnesses, whether subpoenaed or not, are supposed to front-load their witness statements on oath as required by law.

The judge held that the petitioners’ witnesses were incompetent because their statements did not accompany the petition in line with electoral laws.

She agreed with the tribunal that there were inconsistencies in the case of the appellants.

According to her, the allegation of forgery of documents that Ododo submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is a pre-election matter handled by the Federal High Court and not the tribunal.

The judge held that the action occurred before the Nov. 11, 2023, governorship election and thus cannot be legislated upon by the lower tribunal.

The judge also held that the allegation of document forgery needed to be proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Justice Otisi subsequently resolved all the issues raised in the appeal against the appellants.

NAN reports that the tribunal had, on May 27, affirmed the victory of Gov. Ododo of APC in the Nov. 11, 2023, Kogi governorship poll.

The three-member panel of justices, headed by Justice Ado Birnin-Kudu, held that the petition was bereft of substance and accordingly dismissed it.

The tribunal held that SDP and Ajaka failed to prove allegations of over-voting and non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022, in the petition.

The panel, in a unanimous decision, held that all witness evidence filed before it was incompetent and full of inconsistencies.

It also agreed with the respondents’ submissions that the allegations of forgery raised in the petition were pre-election matters, which should have been raised 14 days after the documents were submitted to INEC.

Kogi had, on Nov. 11, 2023, held its off-cycle election in which Ododo of the APC emerged winner, beating his closest rival, Ajaka of the SDP, by a wide margin.

Unsatisfied with INEC’s declaration of Ododo as the winner of the poll, Ajaka and his party dragged the electoral umpire, Ododo, and APC to the tribunal as the 1st to 3rd respondents, respectively.