KOGI GOV SEAT: PDP, Wada refuse to give up, head to Supreme Court

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Musa Wada, have refused to give up their legal battle for the Kogi State governorship seat despite the Appeal Court ruling on Saturday.

The party and its candidate said in a statement on Sunday, that they were confident of winning the battle at the Supreme Court.

The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja on Saturday had upheld the election of Yahaya Bello as Kogi State governor, after dismissing the appeals filed by PDP and other political parties.

But in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP said that the judgment of the Court of Appeal in favour of Governor Bello of the All Progressives Congress (APC) “does not vitiate or detract from the fact, by hard evidence, that it won the November 16, 2019 Kogi state governorship election.”

The party said it was shocked that the Appeal Court, in its judgment, decided to discount the “merit of the evidences before it, which showed that the PDP candidate, Wada scored the highest valid votes in the election.

The PDP observed that the judgment of the Appeal Court would be a major setback to the nation’s democratic process if left unchallenged, but expressed confidence that justice would be served on the merit of the case by the Supreme Court.

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“Our party holds that discounting of hard evidence of over-voting, massive thumb printing, voter intimidation, thuggery and other irregularities and malpractices used by the APC and compromised INEC officials to manipulate the results of the election would be reviewed at the Supreme Court.

“Justice on any matter is based on the weight of evidence before a court. The failure by the Appeal Court to consider key and essential ingredients of evidence before it on their merit, as already admitted and upheld by a judgment of a preceding court, amounted to a frustration of the course of justice in the matter,” the party said.

The PDP restated its insistence that the evidence was clear that its candidate was the genuine choice of the people in the November 16, 2019 election.

“The people of Kogi State now look up to the Supreme Court to reverse this injustice handed over to them, especially, given the evidence laid, as affirmed by the courageous verdict of Justice Ohimai Ovbiagele at the Election Tribunal,” the party added.

It urged the people of Kogi not to despair over the judgment of the Appeal Court but to remain calm and prayerful, maintaining that justice would “definitely be served at the Supreme Court.”

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