The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Tuesday affirmed Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan as the winner of the election for Kogi Central senatorial district of Kogi State held on February 25, 2023.
The Kogi State National/State Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal had earlier ruled that Akpoti-Uduaghan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won the election.
Abubakar Sadiku-Ohere of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was earlier declared winner of the poll by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
A three-man panel of the appellate court dismissed Sadiku-Ohere’s appeal for lacking in merit.
According to the court, the appellant failed to provide convincing evidence why the judgement of the tribunal should be set aside in his favour.
Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan had contested the initial declaration of Sadiku-Ohere as winner of the election by INEC on the grounds that the electoral commission failed to input election results from Ajaokuta, Adavi and Okehi local government areas of the senatorial district, whose votes gave her the winning margin above Sadiku-Ohere.
The court concurred with the argument put forth by counsel for Akpoti-Uduagan, Mr. Joshua Usman, SAN, deeming it meritorious.
Additionally, the appellate court ordered Sen. Ohere to pay a sum of N500,000.
The rejected and excluded results were then added to the overall results by the tribunal, which then revealed that the PDP candidate won the majority of lawful votes cast at the poll.