Breaking: Supreme Court affirms Peter Mbah as Enugu governor

Governor Peter Mbah

The Supreme Court has affirmed the election Peter Mbah as the governor of Enugu State.

Justice Mohammed Garba, who delivered the lead judgement on Friday, December 22, 2023, described as mere allegation the statement that Mbah did not posses the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) certificate, which is one of the certificate he tendered to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)

The Supreme Court resolved all the issues raised in the appeal against the appellant.

The appellant, Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party LP), had dragged INEC and Mbah before the apex court to challenge the decision of the Court of Appeal which dismissed his case against the election of the governor.

The Lagos Division of the Appeal Court, in its unanimous decision, resolved all three issues argued against the appellant, Edeoga.

The three-member panel presided over by Justice Tani Hassan held that the appellant failed to prove that the respondent was not qualified to contest the governorship election.

On the allegation of over voting, Justice Hassan, in her lead judgement, held that the voters’ register was never placed before the lower tribunal, stressing that failure to tender the voter’s register before the lower tribunal rendered the appeal inadmissible.

Justice Hassan also held that the testimony of all the witnesses presented by the appellant did not prove that there was over voting in the governorship election.

Consequently, she dismissed the appeal for lacking in merit and affirmed the judgement of the election tribunal which upheld the election of Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the March 18 gubernatorial election.

The Star