Abia gov’ship: Supreme Court affirms Gov Otti’s election

The Supreme Court has affirmed the election of Governor Alex Otti of Abia State.

A five-member panel of justices on Friday unanimously held that the appeal by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Okechukwu Ahiwe and the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Ikechi Emenike, lacked merit and was therefore dismissed.

Reading the lead judgment, Justice Uwani Abba-Aji held that the allegation that Otti was not qualified to contest the election not having his name submitted in the membership list of the LP 30 days before the primary, was not the intention of Section 177(c) of the Nigerian Constitution.

The panel said the membership of a political party is an internal affair of the party and it is “not the appellant (Ahiwe and the PDP) who should cry out about the nomination.”

On the allegation that Otti and LP did not score the highest lawful votes in the election as the PDP was shortchanged by over 84,000 votes, mainly in Obingwa LGA during the collation of the governorship election results on March 18, 2023, the panel said the evidence tendered was not the CTC, which made it inadmissible.

On the appeal by Emenike and the APC, the panel said the appeal was grossly unmeritorious and vexatious.

The panel wondered how a political party, which scored 24,000 votes to come third to seek to upturn the 175,467 votes and 88,529 votes of the LP and Cross River respectively even when they did not challenge the validity of election conduct.