The Kogi Election Petition Tribunal has dismissed the petition of Mr Musa Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) challenging the election of Governor Yahaya Bello of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Wada was challenging the election of Bello in the Nov. 16, 2019 governorship election in Kogi.
Wada, in his petition, alleged that the election was marred with violence and other irregularities including corrupt practices.
Delivering the majority judgement, Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Kashim Kaigama, dismissed Wada’s petition on the grounds that it was lacking in merit.
The tribunal held that the evidence of some of the witnesses was contradictory and amounted to documentary hearsay.
The tribunal further awarded a cost of N500,000 to be paid by each petitioner to each of the respondents.
However, a member of the tribunal, Justice Ohimai Ovbiagele, disagreed with the judgement.
In his dissenting judgement, Ovbiagele held that Bello was not the duly elected governor of Kogi.
“I hereby nullify the election of the Bello and make an order that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct fresh elections within three months from today.”
Musa Wada scored 189,704 votes to emerge the first runner-up of the November 16 election.
He challenged the victory of Yahaya Bello, who polled 406,222 votes.
Meanwhile, the PDP candidate has vowed to challenge the judgment at the court of Appeal to seek for justice and reclaim what he termed as “stolen mandate”.
Before today’s ruling, the tribunal had also dismissed two other petitions against Bello.
