The Labour Party and its candidate, Chijioke Edeoga, lose their final appeal against the re-election of Governor Peter Mbah of the PDP.
The Supreme Court on Friday put an end to the legal battle over the Enugu State governorship election that took place on March 18, 2023. The apex court unanimously dismissed the appeal filed by the Labour Party (LP) and its candidate, Chijioke Edeoga, who challenged the re-election of Governor Peter Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The five-man panel of justices, led by Justice Mary Odili, affirmed the concurrent decisions of the lower courts, which had rejected the allegations of the appellants. The panel held that the LP and Edeoga failed to prove their claims that Mbah was not qualified to run for the election, and that there was widespread over-voting in his favour.
The panel also noted that the appellants did not present any credible evidence, such as the voters register, to back up their allegations. They resolved all the issues raised in the appeal against the LP and Edeoga, and upheld Mbah’s victory as the validly elected governor of Enugu State.
This is the third time that the LP and Edeoga have lost their bid to unseat Mbah, who was first elected as governor in 2019. The Enugu State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal and the Court of Appeal in Lagos had earlier dismissed their petitions for lack of merit.
The Court of Appeal, in a judgement delivered on November 10, 2023, by a three-member panel headed by Justice Tani Yusuf-Hassan, had upheld the tribunal’s verdict, which affirmed that Mbah met the constitutional requirements to contest the election, and that he scored the highest number of valid votes.
According to the results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mbah polled 160,895 votes, while Edeoga came second with 157,552 votes. Frank Nweke of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) came third with 17,983 votes.
The LP and Edeoga had insisted that they won the election, and accused Mbah of submitting a forged National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) certificate to INEC. They also alleged that Mbah’s strongholds recorded more votes than the number of accredited voters.
However, their allegations were dismissed by the courts, which found them to be baseless and unsubstantiated. The Supreme Court’s judgement on Friday has finally put to rest the controversy over the Enugu State governorship election, and confirmed Mbah’s mandate for a second term in office.
