The Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja on Tuesday, dismissed the case the Social Democratic Party, SDP, lodged to nullify Governor Monday Okpebholo’s election.
The Justice Wilfred Kpochi-led three-member panel tribunal terminated further proceedings on SDP’s petition against Governor Okpebholo after the party withdrew it.
At the resumed sitting on the matter, the petitioner informed the tribunal through its counsel, Mr. Jackson Ehiavhie, that it was no longer interested in pursuing the case to its logical conclusion.
Mr. Ehiavhie told the tribunal that he had received instructions from the National Secretariat of the SDP to withdraw the matter.
Following a no-objection stance by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Governor Okpebholo and the All Progressives Congress, APC, the tribunal’s chairman, Justice Kpochi, dismissed the petition in a short ruling.
It will be recalled that the SDP was among six political parties that approached the tribunal to invalidate the Certificate of Return issued to Governor Okpebholo of the APC as the winner of the governorship election held in the state on September 21, 2024.
INEC declared the APC candidate winner of the election with 291,667 votes to defeat 17 other candidates, including his closest rival, Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who scored 247,274 votes.
Aside from the PDP and its candidate, Ighodalo, other parties that also filed petitions to challenge the outcome of the poll were the Zenith Labour Party, ZLP; Action Democratic Party, ADP; Accord Party, AP; and the Allied Peoples’ Movement, APM.
In the petition it withdrew, the SDP maintained that the election was held in fundamental breach of the provisions of the Electoral Act and the Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of the Election, which were issued by INEC.
Insisting that no valid winner would have emerged from a flawed electoral process, the SDP further alleged that INEC’s failure, through its Presiding Officers, to electronically transmit collated votes at polling units as required by law rendered the votes allocated to the second Respondent, APC, invalid.
It prayed the tribunal to hold that INEC’s declaration of Okpebholo of the APC as winner of the gubernatorial contest amounted to a nullity.
