The election of Olusegun Mimiko as Governor of Ondo State has been upheld by the Court of Appeal sitting in Akure.
Delivering judgement on petitions filed by candidates of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the governorship election held in October 2012, the court, in a unanimous judgement, said the claims of losers in the election lacked merit.
It ruled that the appellants failed to convince the court on any link between injections into voter registers and the announced election result.
In separate appeals, Olusola Oke who was PDP’s candidate and Oluwarotimi Akeredolu who was ACN’s candidate challenged an earlier ruling by the Ondo State Election Petition Tribunal chaired by Justice Andovar Kaka’an.
After the tribunal quashed both petitions for inability of the complainants to prove their cases, they approached the Appeal Court, seeking to upturn the tribunal’s ruling.
Wole AKinlolu Olujimi, the ACN candidate’s lead counsel argued that the court should uphold the appeal because the tribunal erred in dismissing the petition without considering the merit, Nathaniel Oke, the PDP candidate’s lead counsel argued that the court should uphold the appeal because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) violated electoral laws on the voter register.
Wole Olanipekun, Mimiko’s lead counsel argued otherwise, saying the appellants’ vain arguments were proof of the weakness of their appeal. He explained, that according to Section 19 and 20 of the Electoral Act 2010, the tribunal was correct to have ruled that the opening of the soft copy of the voter register was a pre-election matter.
The judges unanimously sided with Olanipekun, subsequently bringing to end the legal tussle for the state’s election since it was held last year
