The Supreme Court has reserved judgment in an appeal by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Okey Ahiwe, seeking the nullification of the election of Governor Alex Oti of Abia state.
Justice John Inyang Okoro reserved the judgment after taking final arguments of parties in the appeal. The PDP’s legal team was led by the immediate past Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF), Abubakar Malami SAN, but the arguments were however canvassed by Uche Ihediuwa SAN.
Ihediuwa alleged that Ahiwe was short-changed with over 84,000 votes during the collation of the governorship election results. He claimed that his client had to approach the All Progressives Congress (APC) before it could access results sheets and discovered the alleged malpractices.
The lawyer submitted that the agent of the PDP was chased away at the collation center and as such, was not obliged a copy of the results as required by law. But Otti, represented by Abiodun John Owonikoko SAN, prayed the Supreme Court to dismiss the appeal for lacking in merit.
He said a purported result sheet produced by the PDP before the State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal was rejected because it could not be read by the witness of the party.
The senior lawyer told the court that Otti scored over 174,000 votes at the March 18, 2023 governorship election to emerge victorious. He added that even if the purported 84,000 short-changed votes were added to PDP, the appellants would still not win.
It will be recalled that Otti of the LP was declared the winner of the governorship election in the Abia State by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on March 22. He polled 175,466 votes to defeat his closest rival, Ahiwe of the PDP, who scored 88,529 votes.
Ahiwe and the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ikechi Emenike, separately challenged Otti’s victory at the tribunal.
The tribunal in its judgment on October 6, 2023 dismissed the petitions by Ahiwe and Emenike and affirmed Otti’s election. The judgment of was later upheld by the appellate court.
