The Supreme Court on Wednesday affirmed
the elections of Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State and Dr.
Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State.
A seven-man bench, presided over by the
Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, unanimously affirmed
the governors’ elections after upholding their separate appeals against
the judgments of the Court of Appeal, which had ordered their removal
from office.
The decisions of the Supreme Court put
paid to the legal actions initiated against Emmanuel and Ikpeazu, who
contested the elections on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party
on April 11, 2015, by their arch rivals.
While Emmanuel’s election was
challenged by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Mr. Okon
Umana, that of Ikpeazu was challenged by All Progressive Grand
Alliance’s candidate, Dr. Alex Otti.
The Abuja Division of the Court of
Appeal had nullified the Akwa Ibom State governorship election in the
entire 31 local government areas of the state on December 18, 2015,
while the Owerri Division of the appeal court removed Ikpeazu and
declared the APGA candidate, Otti, the winner of the election in Abia
State on December 31, 2015.
The apex court delivered its judgments at about 9.50pm on Wednesday after marathon hearings which lasted for about 12 hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment