The Supreme Court, yesterday, dismissed an appeal brought before it by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and its candidate, Dr Umar Ardo, challenging the declaration of Ahmadu Fintiri as Adamawa State Governor. Marked SC/CV/1219/, the request was rejected for want of merit.
  
The appellants had scored 6,000 votes as against the over 430,000 tally recorded by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for Fintiri and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the March 18, 2023 poll.
  
They argued that the election was not conducted in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022.  During yesterday’s proceedings, counsel to the appellants, Sylvester Imhanobe, was asked to substantiate the claim.
  
Upon discovering the body language of the apex court, the appellants withdrew their appeal. Justice John Okoro, who led a five-man panel of judges, dismissed the appeal without any cost, and affirmed Fintiri as being validly elected as governor.

IN a related development, the apex court reserved judgment in an appeal filed by PDP and its standard-bearer, Okey Ahiwe, seeking to unseat Alex Oti as Abia State Governor.
   
Justice Okoro reserved ruling till a date to be communicated to parties after taking their final arguments. Though PDP’s legal team was led by immediate past Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF), Abubakar Malami (SAN), the arguments were, however, presented by Uche Ihediuwa (SAN).
  
While presenting its submissions, Ihediuwa alleged that Ahiwe was short-changed by over 84,000 votes during collation of the governorship election results.

The lawyer claimed that the party’s agent was chased away from the collation centre, and thus, could not immediately access the results. He added that his client had to approach the All Progressives Congress (APC) to access the result sheets wherein he discovered the alleged malpractices.
  
However, Otti, represented by Abiodun John Owonikoko (SAN) asked the apex court to dismiss the appeal for want of merit. The senior lawyer informed the court that the governor scored over 174,000 votes at the poll to emerge victorious, adding that even if the purported 84,000 short-changed votes are added to PDP, the appellants would still not win.
  
He said the result sheet produced by the PDP before the Abia State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal was rejected because it could not be read by its witness.
  
After taking the arguments, Justice Okoro announced that judgment had been reserved, adding that the date of delivery would be communicated to the relevant parties.
  
Recall that Otti of the Labour Party (LP) was declared winner of the contest by INEC on March 22 last year. He polled 175,466 votes to defeat his closest rival, Ahiwe of the PDP, who scored 88,529 votes. Ahiwe and the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ikechi Emenike, separately challenged Otti’s victory at the tribunal.
 
 In its judgment on October 6, 2023, the tribunal dismissed their petitions and returned Otti as governor. The judgment was later affirmed by the Court of Appeal.