Ekiti Guber: Supreme Court affirms Fayemi’s victory

The Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the victory of Ekiti State governor, Kayode Fayemi at the July 2018 governorship election in the state and dismissed the appeal filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Kolapo Olusola-Eleka challenging the election of the governor.

Affirming Fayemi’s election, the five-man panel of the Supreme Court led by the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad unanimously held that the appeal challenging the outcome of the poll lacked merit.

Justice John Okoro, who read the lead judgment, affirmed the judgments of both the Ekiti State Election Petition Tribunal and the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal, which had both dismissed the petition challenging the outcome of the July 2018 poll.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had declared Fayemi and the All Progressives Congress (APC) who polled a total of 197,459 winner of the election. Olusola-Eleka and the PDP placed second with 178,121 votes.

However, dissatisfied with the outcome, PDP and Olusola-Eleka had filed their petition before the Ekiti State Election Petition Tribunal which sat and delivered its judgment in Abuja.

The petitioners alleged among others in their petition that the election was marred by a lot of wrongs including non-compliance with the Electoral Act.

But the tribunal had on January 28, 2019 dismissed their petition and affirmed the results declared by INEC.

The petitioners further appealed to the Court of Appeal, raising seven issues against the judgment of the tribunal.

But delivering judgment, Justice Stephen Adah who led the three-man panel of the Court of Appeal, resolved all the seven issues raised against the appellants and in favour of the respondents – Fayemi, INEC and APC.

Justice Adah dismissed the case for lacking in merit, a decision the two other members of the panel: Justices Tinuade Akomolafe-Wilson and Emmanuel Agim, consented.

In their further appeal to the Supreme Court, the PDP and Olusola-Eleka, urged the apex court through their lawyer, Yusuf Ali (SAN), to upturn the lower court’s judgment. The appeal was, however, dismissed by the Supreme Court on Friday.