Senator Smart Adeyemi and Abubakar Achimugu have filed two separate appeals at the Supreme Court challenging the emergence of Alhaji Usman Ododo as the candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) for the November 11 governorship election in Kogi state.
Adeyemi and Achimugu, who were governorship aspirants in the April 14, 2023 APC primary election in Kogi State, urged the apex court to upturn the judgments of the Court of Appeal and Federal High Court, which recognised that Ododo was validly nominated by the APC.
Adeyemi, in the appeal said to have been filed last Friday, argued that the lower court erred when it arrived at the conclusion that he did not prove allegations contained in his suit.
The former Senator submitted amongst others that as a result of the irregularities, the results announced at the end of the April 14 direct primary election were not in consonance with the results the committee claimed to have collated across the wards in the state; that in the process of allocating votes to the various aspirants, the election committee decided to allot a bogus 78,704 votes to Ododo and 311 votes – the least number of votes to him.
He said the primary election that ushered in Ododo was fraught with irregularities and evidence of substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act.
He is equally praying the Supreme Court to cancel the April 14 direct primary election of the APC in Kogi State and order a fresh election to be conducted either by direct, indirect or consensus mode, based on superior argument, for the nomination of a candidate lawfully elected by the majority of the members of the APC in Kogi State.
In his appeal, Achimugu is contesting the qualification of Ododo on the ground that he did not resign from the civil service at the time of purchasing and submission of his expression of interest and nomination forms.
He averred that claims that Ododo submitted his resignation letter to Governor Yahaya Bello was untenable and an afterthought, as the appropriate channel to do so is the Civil Service Commission, which copies ought to have been submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the party.
