Kogi guber: Court reserves verdict on Ajaka’s appeal

The Court of Appeal in Abuja has reserved judgement in the appeal filed by the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party, Muritala Ajaka, against the May 27, 2024, judgement of the state election petition tribunal.

The election victory of the state Governor, Usman Ododo, who stood for the seat under the All Progressives Congress, was affirmed by a three-member panel of the Tribunal on November 11, 2023.

The tribunal held that SDP and Ajaka failed to prove the allegations of over-voting and non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022 as stated in their petition.

The panel, in a unanimous decision, held that all the witness evidence filed before it was incompetent and full of inconsistencies.

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It also agreed with the submissions of the respondents that the allegations of forgery raised in the petition were pre-election matters, which ought to have been raised 14 days after the documents were submitted to INEC.

At Thursday’s sitting, a three-member panel of Justices of the appellate court reserved judgment in the appeal to a date that would be communicated to parties involved after the adumbration and adoption of addresses.

In their arguments, the respondents prayed the court to dismiss the appellants’ appeal while in the cross-appeal the appellants urged the court to dismiss the cross-appeal in its entirety.

He said, “We urge your Lordships to indulge this process and dismiss this appeal for lacking in merit. There is an issue of jurisdiction arising from the place of the appellant in prayer 8 of page 25 of the appellant’s brief of argument.

“If you claim that the election was invalid, how do you ask to be declared the winner of the election.”

He also argued that the evidence of the petitioners was grossly insufficient, citing a Supreme Court decision.

Agabi argued that once the evidence called is grossly insufficient, there is no evidence. He said the petitioners only called 25 witnesses out of the 660 listed.

He further argued that out of the 25 witnesses called by the petitioners, there was no single polling unit agent among them.

He added that the prosecution witness 1 did not file any witness deposition beforehand as required by law and as such cannot give evidence in an election petition.

He said “You must file a witness deposition beforehand. My Lord the witness did not file a witness deposition beforehand and the tribunal rejected his witness.

“The witness also hinged that he cannot authenticate that the BVAs machine before him in court was the one used in the election. How then can the tribunal go through with his testimony”?

Agabi argued that there were inconsistencies in the case of the appellants.

He said the Appeal Court had decided that if the grounds of a petition were inconsistent with one another, and were not consistent with the reliefs, it should be struck out.

Joseph Daudu, who appeared for Ododo, argued that no single evidence of PW1 was admitted as evidence by the court on the ground that the appellants failed to front-load their witness statement beforehand.

Daudu said the tribunal did no wrong to have expunged the evidence of PW1.

He contended that the tribunal already declared it inadmissible because the appellants failed to prove the allegation of over-voting in their petition.

He also urged the tribunal to dismiss the allegations of forgery against his client, saying it bordered on a pre-election matter, which the apex court had decided in Gbagi’s case against INEC.

that Section 137 of the Electoral Act cited by the petitioners on allegations of over-voting did not apply in the instant petition.

He prayed the court to dismiss the appeal and affirm the judgment of the Tribunal which upheld the election of Ododo.

APC counsel, Emmanuel Ukala, prayed the appellate court to dismiss the petition for being incompetent.

Ajaka’s counsel, Pius Akubo, while adopting processes, urged the court to set aside the judgement of the Kogi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal and declare Ajaka as the governor of Kogi state.

Ajaka and his party in the appeal hinged on 31 grounds, insisted that they are the winners of the November 11, 2023 governorship election and should be declared so.

The appellants argued that the judgement of the Tribunal which affirmed Ododo’s election was a serious miscarriage of justice.

He also urged the panel to dismiss the cross-appeal of the respondents who prayed to the court to dismiss his petition

Kogi had on Nov. 11, 2023, conducted its off-cycle election which produced Ododo as the winner of the polls.

Ajaka, his closest rival, came in second position according to the result announced by the electoral body.