On Friday, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal by the All Progressive Congress (APC) to nullify the election victory of Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State.
In a unanimous decision by a five-member panel of Justices, it dismissed as incompetent, an appeal that the APC and its candidate in the state, Uche Nnaji, filed to challenge the return of Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) as winner of the election.
According to Justice Tijani Abubakar, the Supreme Court, held that Nnaji and the APC filed an invalid brief of argument.
It held that the appellants failed to present any cogent reason why the invalid process they filed should be relied upon to invalidate Governor Mbah’s election victory.
The court stated that since the appellant’s brief of argument was legally defective, it ultimately affected the substantive appeal.
Consequently, it dismissed the case of the appellants for being incompetent.
Recall that the Court of Appeal in Enugu had, on July 18, also thrown out Nnaji’s case against Mbah.
Besides, the appellate court awarded the sum of N250,000 each, against Nnaji and the APC.
At the end of the governorship election in Enugu state the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared that Mbah polled 160,895 votes to defeat Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party (LP) who scored 157,552 votes.
While Frank Nweke Jnr. of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) came third with 17, 983 votes, Nnaji, came fourth with 14,575 votes.
Not satisfied with the outcome of the election, Nnaji, filed a petition to challenge Mbah’s victory.
He insisted that Mbah was at the time of the election, not eligible to contest, alleging that he presented a forged certificate to INEC, in aid of his qualification.
