In a unanimous judgment delivered on Thursday, a five-member panel of the apex court, led by Justice Mohammed Garba, dismissed the appeal filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Asue Ighodalo, for lacking in merit.
Reading the lead judgment, the Supreme Court held that the appellant failed to satisfactorily discharge the burden of proof required by law. The court maintained that there was no compelling reason to overturn the concurrent judgments of the Court of Appeal and the Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which had earlier upheld Okpebholo’s victory.
According to the justices, the PDP and Ighodalo failed to substantiate their allegations of electoral malpractice, including claims of over-voting and substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act.
One critical flaw identified by the court was the petitioners’ mishandling of evidence concerningthe Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS). While documents were tendered, the petitioners did not call relevant witnesses to authenticate the evidence or to effectively link the BVAS data to the alleged irregularities in 432 out of the state’s 4,519 polling units.
“The appellant did not satisfactorily discharge the burden of proof placed on him by the law,” the court ruled, stressing that many of the claims were unsubstantiated and largely built on hearsay and unverified documentation.
The apex court also agreed with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Okpebholo, and the APC, all of whom had urged the court to reject the appeal.
Ighodalo had approached the Supreme Court seeking to upturn the Court of Appeal’s 29 May ruling and to be declared the rightful winner of the election. However, the court reaffirmed INEC’s official results, which showed Okpebholo polling 291,667 votes against Ighodalo’s 247,655.
With this judgment, the legal battle over the Edo governorship election has been conclusively settled, confirming Senator Okpebholo’s mandate and drawing the curtain on the PDP’s challenge.
