{"id":23191,"date":"2019-12-18T19:42:45","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T18:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=23191"},"modified":"2019-12-18T19:42:45","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T18:42:45","slug":"supreme-court-uphold-udom-makindes-election-as-governors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=23191","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court upholds Udom, Makinde’s election as governors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
Gov. Seyi Makinde of Oyo State<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nThe Supreme Court in Abuja has upheld the election of Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom state.
\nThe apex court in a judgment delivered on Wednesday\u00a0 Dec. 18th, said the case filed by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) lacked merit.
\nOthers who had their elections upheld at the apex court are Abdulahi Sule of Nasarawa, Nasir el Rufai (Kaduna), Sanwo-Olu (Lagos), and Masari (Katsina),
\nThe APC candidate in Akwa Ibom Obong Nsima Ekere, in the March 9 governorship election had challenged the victory of Emmanuel, who was declared the winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC).
\nIn a judgement\u00a0 delivered by Justice Mary Odili, the court says Ekere\u2019s \u201cappeal lacks merit and its accordingly dismissed.\u201d
\nThe Supreme Court has also upheld the victory of Seyi Makinde of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the Oyo State Governor in the March 9 governorship election.
\nMakinde had polled 515, 621 votes defeating, his closest rival, Mr Adebayo Adelabu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who polled 357,982 votes.
\nThe apex court, in a unanimous decision on Wednesday set aside the decision of the Appeal Court which ordered for a supplementary election in some of the contested wards.
\nThe appeal court had ruled against the decision of the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, Oyo, State which dismissed the petition filed by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Adelabu.
\nThe apex court held that the lower court erred by setting aside the decision of the tribunal which upheld Makinde\u2019s victory.
\nThe apex court said the appeal court\u2019s majority judgment setting aside the ruling of the tribunal deserved to be set aside.
\nThe apex court also held that the respondents (APC and Adelabu), were unable to prove the allegations of violence and malpractices which they claimed marred the exercise in parts of the state.
\nChief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, Counsel for Makinde had earlier urged the court to disregard and dismiss the appeal against his client\u2019s victory at the poll.
\nOlanipekun said the tribunal had handled the matter in line with existing case laws, adding that the majority decisions were in tandem with Supreme Court\u2019s position on similar matters.
\nOlanipekun also argued that his client had defeated his opponents in the polls with over 15700 polls and won in 28 out of 33 local governments in the state.
\nThe APC\u2019s governorship candidate had approached the election petition tribunal seeking a nullification of the exercise.
\nThe tribunal dismissed the petition on the grounds that the petitioners failed to prove the allegations of malpractices in the election.
\nDissatisfied with the outcome of the matter, the petitioners proceeded to the court of appeal where the governor was neither removed nor retained in the office.
\nMakinde, thereafter, approached the apex court urging it to set aside the decision of the lower court.
\nAdditional reports by www.nan.ng<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court in Abuja has upheld the election of Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom state. The apex court in a judgment delivered on Wednesday\u00a0 Dec. 18th, said the case filed by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) lacked merit. Others who had their elections upheld at the apex court are Abdulahi […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":23192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,7,8],"tags":[83,48,523],"class_list":["post-23191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jobs","category-news","category-politics","tag-makinde","tag-supreme-court","tag-udom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}