S’Court upholds Govs Ortom, Fintiri’s elections

The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the elections of Governor Samuel Ortom on Benue State and his Adamawa State counterpart, Governor Ahmadu Umar Fintiri, as duly elected governors of their states at the election held on March 9, 2019.

The Apex court, with the two judgments delivered on Tuesday, seem to have concluded the hearing of appeals rising from the 2019 governorship elections.

In a unanimous judgments, the Court held that the appeals challenging the election of the two state governors lacked merit, and consequently dismissed the appeals.

In a terse judgment, Justice Sylvester Ngwuta, who read the lead judgment in the appeal filed by Emmanuel Jime of the All Progressives Congress (APC) against Governor Samuel Ortom said: “I have considered all the issues raised in the appeal and I have come to the conclusion that the concurrent decisions of the two lower courts ought not to be disturbed.”

“This appeal is hereby dismissed for lacking in merit”, he held.

The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Emmanuel Jime, had challenged Governor Samuel Ortom’s victory at the poll before the state Governorship election petition tribunal and at the Court of Appeal on the alleged grounds of irregularities and over voting at the election. He lost at the Benue State Governorship election petition tribunal and at Court of Appeal.

Dissatisfied, he had approached the Supreme Court to reverse the decision of the Court of Appeal and to declare him as winner of the said election. He claimed that there was irregularities and malpractices in 600 polling units.

Jime’s lawyer, Yusuf Ali (SAN), therefore urged the apex court to nullify Ortom’s election, saying that the disparity between the number of accredited voters recorded by the smart card reader machines used for the conduct of the election and the number of votes recorded had rendered the election invalid.

“There must be an agreement between the number of accredited voters and the total votes,” he said.

Counsel to respondents in the appeal, INEC, Ortom and Peoples Democratic Party in their submissions, urged the court to dismiss the appeal which they said was bereft of any evidence.

Ortom’s counsel, Sebastine Hon (SAN), told the seven-member panel that the appellants’ case was lacking in evidence, as the card reader report which they relied on was struck out by the tribunal.

Also, PDP’s lawyer, Chief Chris Uche (SAN), on his part, urged the apex court to dismiss the appeal “and uphold the concurrent decisions of the Court of Appeal and the tribunal in holding that the second respondent, Samuel Ortom was duly elected and validly returned as the winner of the governorship election”.

Also on Tuesday, the apex court held in its judgment in the appeals contesting the Adamawa State Governorship seat that Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri was duly elected governor of the state.

In the unanimous judgment of the court, delivered by Justice Dattijo Mohammed, the apex court dismissed the appeal filed by the former governor of the state, Muhammed Jibrilla Bindow.

Bindow had, in his appeal, asked the apex court to set aside the decision of the state election petition tribunal and the Court of Appeal and annul Fintiri’s election.

He alleged over voting in the election, adding that the total number of votes recorded exceeded the number of voters accredited.

But, the apex court held on Tuesday that the appellant failed to prove the allegation of over voting as he failed to lay concrete evidence that there was over voting.

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Justice Mohammed said the appellant could not call any witness from the local government areas in the state where over voting was alleged.

The court held also that the two lower courts were not wrong in their decisions in the matter and that the two courts were right to hold that the appellant failed to prove the allegation of over voting and his case cannot succeed.

According to the court, the return of Governor Fintiri by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the duly elected governor of Adamawa State, “is hereby affirmed”.