BREAKING: Supreme Court upholds Akeredolu’s victory in split judgment, dismisses Jegede’s suit

BREAKING: Supreme Court upholds Akeredolu’s victory, dismiss Jegede’s suit

Nigeria’s apex court, the Supreme Court of Nigeria, has upheld the victory of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu in the Ondo State governorship election held last year.

The suit of Mr. Eyitayo Jegede, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was thrown out.

Akeredolu, the incumbent governor and candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), was declared winner of the governorship election held on October 10, 2020, but Jegede and the PDP challenged his victory all the way to the apex court.

But the judgment divided Supreme Court justices 4-3, meaning that Akeredolu survived only the whiskers.

While four out of the seven-member panel of justices of the court dismissed the appeal for failure to join Yobe State governor, Mai Mala Buni, as a party in the petition, three of the justices, including the presiding Justice, Mary Peter Odili are of the view that the appeal should be allowed.

Justices Odili, Ejembi Eko and Tijjani Abubakar, who dissented in their judgment, held that Buni, as an executive governor of a state, cannot act in the capacity of acting chairman of the APC.

They equally held that the Yobe State governor acted in violation of Section 183 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.

Meanwhile, in the majority judgment, four of the apex court justices agreed with the concurrent decisions of the Ondo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal in dismissing the appeal for lacking in merit.

Details later…