Supreme Court affirms Mbah as Enugu Governor

By Vivian Okejeme

The Supreme Court of Nigeria has affirmed the election of Peter Mbah as the governor of Enugu State.
In particular, the Apex Court aligned with the decisions of the court of appeal Lagos and that of the Enugu state Election Petition Tribunal which upheld the election of Mbah as governor.
The five-man panel of the justices, led by Justice Muhammed Garba, on Friday resolved the issues canvassed by the appellant who is the candidate of Labour Party (LP) Mr. Edeoga Chijioke Jonathan against him.
Recall that the Labour Paper(LP) candidate has prayed that, Mbah was not qualified to participate in the election because he allegedly failed the basic eligibility test by filing a forged NYSC discharge Certificate under oath.
They also contested that the election was not conducted in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act, with respect to the non-use of BVAS machines for accreditation, inter-changing of LP’s results in 19 PUs at the Ward Collation Centre in Udenu LGA , electoral violence and.
Also, that the election result was not counted in accordance with the law due to over-voting, wrong tabulations especially in Mbah’s Owo Ward and Ugbawka 1 Ward, both of Nkanu East LGA, etc.
However, at the court of Appeal, sitting in Lagos, led by Tani Yusuf-Hassan, the appallate court held that the Labour Party (LP) and its governorship candidate failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove that Mr Mbah was not qualified to contest the election.
On the allegation of over-voting, Mrs Hassan said in her lead judgement that voters’ registers were not presented before the lower tribunal.
She, therefore, ruled that the appeal failed because the petitioners failed to submit the voters’ registers for the disputed areas to substantiate the over-voting allegation.
Furthermore, the court determined that the witnesses presented by the Labour Party did not sufficiently prove the existence of over-voting in the governorship election.
Consequently, the court dismissed the case for lacking in merit and upheld the judgement of the election tribunal, which had earlier affirmed INEC’s declaration of Mr Mbah as the winner of the 18 March governorship election.
Equally, the Supreme Court on the issue of non qualification of Governor Mbah, held that, the allegations by Jonathan have laid without proof at all and liable to be truck out, saying “there is merit in the argument of the appellant and lacks merit.”
Meanwhile, on the complain of lack of proper evaluation or counting of results in accordance with the law by the appellant, the court held that, the Tribunal was right to hold that the evidences were merely hearsay as they are not substantiated.
According to the court: “The Appeal lacks merit and the decision of the of appeal is affirmed in its entirety.
“All parties bear their respective costs.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Governor Mbah as winner of the governorship election with 160,895 votes.
Mr. Edeoga of the LP came second with 157,552 votes, while Frank Nweke of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) polled 17, 983 votes to place third.
As expected, dissatisfied with the results, Mr Edeoga and his party filed a petition, challenging Mr Mbah’s victory, asking that he should be declared as winner on the grounds that he and the party, polled the highest number of valid votes.
While reacting on the judgment, Counsel to Governor Mbah, Mr. Damian Dodo SAN said it was in line with the law.