The petition filed by the All Progressives Congress, APC, candidate for governor in the state, Akanimo Udofia, challenging the election of Pastor Umo Eno of the Peoples Democratic Party as the winner of the March 18, 2023 elections, was dismissed by the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, on Thursday.
By presenting fake documents to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and failing to receive the greatest number of lawful votes in the March 18, 2023 Governorship elections, Udofia moved to invalidate Pastor Eno’s election.
Udofia further said that the second respondent was unable to run for office since he had been found guilty by an Abuja Magistrate Court.
However, in favour of Governor Umo Eno, the 2nd Respondent, the Tribunal determined in its unanimous ruling that the petitioners’ claims of grave electoral law violations in the conduct of the elections were insufficiently supported by the evidence.
The panel, which was presided over by Justice Adekunle Adeleye, also found that the magistrate court’s verdict invalidated the prior conviction of Pastor Umo Eno and that, once a judgement is invalidated, it is no longer binding.
“It is not the tribunal’s responsibility to judge whether the magistrate court’s decision to reverse its own judgement was appropriate. The Abuja High Court has jurisdiction over that.
The Tribunal argued that the Supreme Court had already decided that Pastor Eno was the legitimate owner of the WAEC certificates he presented to INEC while discussing the qualifications of the 2nd Respondent.
Pastor Eno presented the 1981 WAEC certificate to the first respondent, INEC, according to the lead ruling, which was read by Justice Kadi Usman Sikudu. However, the petitioners claimed that Pastor Eno was not the legitimate owner of the document.
The tribunal also struck the testimony of a renowned Interpol agent who had been called as a witness by the petitioner and was there to present a report on the results of the second respondent’s WAEC.
The tribunal ruled that Uwem Ekanem’s membership on the board of the Ibom Power Company cannot be classified as political office and that a party agent’s membership on a company’s board is not enough to disqualify a candidate in response to the petitioner’s claim that the PDP used public office holders, such as one Uwem Ekanem, as collation agents in the Ikot Abasi local government area.
The Tribunal determined that Akanimo Udofia’s case lacked substance because he was unable to identify even one polling place where the electoral laws for the March 18 Governorship elections were broken.
The panel also rejected Mr. Udofia’s claim that Senator Bassey Albert, who finished second in the race, was ineligible.
The tribunal insisted that the convicted YPP candidate was still appealing his conviction at the time of the elections, making him eligible to run for office.
The tribunal also rejected the APC’s arguments that Senator Albert lacked the qualifications to represent YPP because he had previously run for the same position in the PDP.
It was decided that the petitioner had no right to contest the candidates that the YPP nominated or the process by which he became their nominee because he was not a member of the YPP.
The petitions filed by the NNPP’s Senator John James Akpan Udoedehe and the ANC’s Ezekiel Nyaetok for governor have already been dismissed by the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in Uyo as being without merit.
