The Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, has affirmed Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan as the duly elected candidate for Kogi Central Senatorial Election earlier in February.
The Court upheld the judgment of the Kogi State Senatorial Tribunal, which on September 6, sacked candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Abubakar Sadiku-Ohere, as winner of the Kogi State central senatorial election.
A three-man panel of the appellate affirmed the judgment of the tribunal, shortly after it dismissed Sadiku-Ohere’ appeal for lacking in merit.
According to the Court of Appeal, he failed to provide convincing evidence why the judgment of the tribunal should be set aside.
The appellate court, subsequently held that Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) having won the majority of lawful votes cast at the poll, is declared winner of the Kogi State Central Senatorial District poll.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Sadiku-Ohere of the APC winner of the February 25, senatorial election.
Dissatisfied, Akpoti-Uduaghan had appealed the declaration on grounds that INEC failed to input results from Ajaokuta, Adavi and Okehi Local Government Areas, whose votes gave her the lead above Sadiku-Ohere.
The rejected and excluded results were then added to the overall results which then revealed that the PDP candidate won the majority of votes cast at the poll.
The appellate court in rejecting the APC candidate appeal held that INEC which has the duty of conducting and collating results failed to provide reasons why the results of the elections in the affected local governments areas were rejected and excluded from the overall results.
For his part, the Governorship Candidate of the Peoples Democratic party in Kogi State, Dino Melaye, commended the Appeal Court for upholding the judgement of the lower court stating that, it has laid credence to the fact that the last general election was fraught with irregularities.
SPEAKER
-Dino Melaye, Governorship Candidate, PDP, Kogi State