Newscenter Media News The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal filed against the election of Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue State.
The dismissal was sequel to an oral withdrawal of the appeal by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his governorship candidate, Mr Titus Uba, upon being confronted by the apex court that the matter was a pre-election matter and, as such, outside the jurisdiction of the court.
Uba and PDP had last month approached the apex court to challenge the declaration of Governor Alia of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as winner of the March 18 governorship election in Benue State.
Besides claiming that the governor and his party did not win majority of lawful votes cast at the election, they submitted that Alia and the APC were not qualified to contest the election on account of alleged certificate forgery and providing of false information by the Deputy Governor, Sam Odeh, to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
However, when the matter came up on Monday for hearing, a five-member panel of the apex court led by Justice John Okoro, pointed out that the major ground of non-qualification upon which the appellants rest their appeal was a pre-election matter, which the apex court has held over time to be an incompetent case before them in a post election matter.
Justice Okoro harped that it would be needless to proceed with the matter knowing the outcome, adding that the court should not be overburdened with such issues considering the magnitude of cases on the docket of the apex court.
Responding, lead lawyer to the appellants, Chief Sebastine Hon, SAN, moved an oral application for the withdrawal of the appeal.
The application for withdrawal was not objected to by counsel representing, INEC, Alia, Odeh and APC, following which Justice Okoro, announced the dismissal of the case.
The Court of Appeal in Abuja, had in November last year dismissed the appeal filed by Uba and PDP) against the election of Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia as Governor of Benue State.
The three-member panel of the appellate court in a judgment held that the appeal lacked merit and subsequently dismissed it.
Justice Onyekachi Otisi, who delivered the lead judgment subsequently affirmed the judgment of the Benue State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal, which had in September affirmed the declaration of Alia of the APC as winner of the March 18 governorship election in Benue State.
INEC had declared Alia, a Catholic priest, winner of the Benue guber poll haven scored 473,933 votes ahead of his closest rival Uba, who scored 223,913.
Dissatisfied, Uba and PDP had approached the governorship election tribunal to challenge INEC’s return of Alia as governor.
Benue guber: PDP loses as Supreme Court affirms Alia’s victory