The Social Democratic Party (SDP) and its candidate in the November 2023 governorship election in Kogi State, Murtala Yakubu Ajaka have urged the Court of Appeal to set aside the decision of the tribunal affirming the victory Usman Ododo of All Progressives Congress (APC).
The SDP and Ajaka want the court to void Ododo’s victory and declare them the winner of the election.
In the record compiled and transmitted to the appellate court through his lawyer, Pius Akubo (SAN) on June 14, the appellants said, the judgment of the Tribunal which affirmed Ododo’s election was a serious miscarriage of justice.
Ajaka and his party, in the appeal, hinged on 31 grounds, insist that they are the winners of the November 11, 2023 governorship election and should be declared the rightful winner.
The appellants, who are dissatisfied with the decision of the Kogi State Election Petition Tribunal headed by Justice Ado Yusuf Birnin Kudu are praying the court for an order setting aside the judgement of the Tribunal, and an order restoring the testimony of their first witness (PW1), as well as all the documents they tendered but expunged from the records of the Tribunal.
The appellants also want that Appeal Court to hold that Ododo was not even qualified to have contested the election into the office of Governor of Kogi State, and that all votes ascribed and or allocated to him and the APC were wasted votes. Shortly after the judgement of the Tribunal delivered on May 27, 2024, Ajaka said the long walk to freedom in Kogi State had just began.
He maintained that throughout the entire process, their team of lawyers exhibited the highest level of professionalism and tenacity.
In faulting the tribunal’s judgment, the appellants noted that although the tribunal agreed that their petition was filled within time and that there was over voting, the tribunal proceeded to uphold the election.
They said: “In their confusion they (members of the tribunal’s three-member panel) ruled that PW1 who displayed the documents with which they agreed there was over voting is not clear to them. They claimed they did not know if he was INEC staff or not.
“It was the tribunal that ordered INEC to provide the BVAS and someone who will power and display the BVAS in court and that PW1 came to the court with a certified letter from INEC stating that he was indeed the representative of INEC.
”PW1 was in the court with his identity card and other supporting documents to show he is INEC staff.
“Recall further that when the PW1 absented from the court, the tribunal ordered INEC to produce him or produce another person and they did comply to produce him yet, the tribunal members said they do not know him. What a contradictive judgement.”
Akubo stated that, a serious miscarriage of justice has been done for not declaring the appellants winners of the November 11, 2023 governorship election in Kogi.
