The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Tuesday dismissed the appeal filed by Dino Melaye; candidate of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP,in Kogi West Senatorial District election, challenging the victory of Senator Smart Adeyemi of the All Progressives Congress, APC as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The panel upheld the judgment delivered on June 10, 2020 by the National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal which affirmed the declaration of Adeyemi as winner of the election by the umpire.
The three-member panel of Justices of the appellate court, headed by Justice Ibrahim Salawa, while striking out the appeal, held that it was filed out of time and awarded N50, 000 cost against Melaye in favour of the respondents.
In its judgment, the tribunal held that both Melaye and his party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) failed to substantiate their claims as required by law.
“We have protocol and we cannot go outside the purview of the law”, and consequently struck out the appeal for being incompetent and upheld the judgment of the Kogi State National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal, which affirmed the election of Senator Adeyemi.
The former Senator had claimed that he was the authentic winner of the election and prayed the tribunal to declare him the winner, having scored the highest number of valid votes.
Melaye further argued that the 88,373 votes declared for Adeyemi which he used to win the election were got through manipulation of figures in Lokoja and other local government areas.
The panel however held that claims of over-voting and other alleged electoral malpractices were not substantiated both from documents presented and testimonies of witnesses.
INEC had declared Adeyemi as the winner and issued him Certificate-of-Return after the November 2019 Senatorial rerun election in which he scored the winning majority of lawful votes cast at the poll leading to the petition at the tribunal.
Consequently, Adeyemi was thereafter sworn-in in the Senate and immediately replaced Dino Melaye as Chairman of Senate Committee on Aviation.