Tribunal dismisses PDP candidates petition against Abia governor

The judgment was delivered on Friday.

The Abia State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in Umuahia has dismissed the petition filed by the candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Okey Ahiwe, against the election of Alex Otti as governor of the state.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Mr Otti, the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), as the winner of the 18 March governorship election in the state.

He polled 175,466 votes to defeat his closest rival, Mr Ahiwe of the PDP, who scored 88,529 votes in the election.

However, Mr Ahiwe, and his All Progressives Congress (APC) counterpart, Ikechi Emenike, separately challenged the victory at the tribunal.

Messrs Ahiwe and Emenike, in their petitions, contended that Mr Otti was not qualified to run for the election on the basis that he was not a member of the LP at the time of the exercise.

They also claimed that Mr Otti did not win the majority of lawful votes cast and that there were irregularities at the poll.

The Judgment

Delivering judgment on Friday, a three-member panel of judges dismissed all petitions by Mr Ahiwe, and his party, the PDP, against the election of Mr Otti, according to a report by Vanguard.

The tribunal explained that three grounds of the petitions by Mr Ahiwe and the PDP were dismissed for lack of merit.

After dismissing the petitions, the election court adjourned for 10 minutes to continue with the petition by the APC candidate Mr Emenike against Mr Otti.

Meanwhile, the counsel to Mr Ahiwe and the PDP, Chukwuemeka Nworgu, asked the tribunal to make a copy of the judgment available to him to enable his clients determine the next steps to take.