Judgment Day Approaches: Edo Gubernatorial Election Tribunal Announces Ruling Date

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the 2024 election. Okpebholo triumphed over Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP).

The tribunal had reserved judgment in the petition filed by the PDP and its candidate, Asue Ighodalo, who are challenging Okpebholo’s victory. They are alleging electoral irregularities such as over-voting, ballot non-serialization, improper collation, and computation errors.

Throughout the hearings, the petitioners called 19 witnesses and subpoenaed a Senior Technical Officer from INEC’s ICT department, who presented 154 BVAS machines to support the over-voting claims.

INEC, Okpebholo, and the APC are the first to third respondents in the case marked EPT/ED/GOV/02/2024. INEC did not call any witnesses to counter the petitioners’ claims. Okpebholo called one witness, while the APC called four before closing their defense.

The tribunal, led by Justice Wilfred Kpochi, announced that the judgment date would be communicated to all parties by the Secretary of the tribunal.

During the hearings, the petitioners’ lead counsel, Adetunji Oyeyipo (SAN), formally adopted their final written address. INEC’s counsel, Kanu Agabi (SAN), argued that the case lacked merit and urged the tribunal to dismiss it, pointing out that the petitioners’ polling unit agents had signed the result sheets and could not distinguish between what they heard and observed.

Agabi further criticized the petitioners for failing to present alternative results or credible evidence to support their claims, describing the allegations of non-compliance as weak. On behalf of Okpebholo, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN) emphasized that the APC candidate won through valid votes, countering the petitioners’ claims about non-serialization of materials and over-voting.

APC’s counsel, Emmanuel Ukala, also adopted the final address, stating that the petitioners failed to provide enough witnesses to support their case and criticized their limited focus on just five polling units out of over 4,000 in the state.

In response, petitioners’ counsel, Ken Morzi (SAN), clarified that their complaints were confined to 765 polling units and argued that the case should be assessed comprehensively, not just by the percentage of contested polling units. He stressed that their primary issue was with the transformation of 25 votes into 525 at the collation centers.