The Kogi State National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja on Wednesday upheld the election of Senator Smart Adeyemi as the representative of Kogi West Senatorial District.
The tribunal, in its judgement, threw out the petition of Senator Dino Melaye, formerly representing the senatorial district, for lacking in meeting.
According to the Justice Isa Sambo-led tribunal, the petitioner failed to prove his case beyond reasonable doubt.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the rerun, which held in 53 polling units on November 30, 2019, was ordered in the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which nullified Melaye’s victory in the main election, which earlier held in March 2019.
The Independent National Electoral Commission had declared Adeyemi of the All Progressives Congress, who garnered 88,373 votes, as the winner of the poll.
INEC declared that he defeated Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party, who polled 62,133.
But Melaye had in his petition urged the tribunal to declare him the winner of the election or order a fresh election.
He claimed that the senatorial return election was marred by violence, over-voting, manipulation of figures and other irregularities and called for total cancellation of the affected areas.
Melaye, with his party as co-petitioner, had joined INEC, APC and Adeyemi as the respondents to the petition.
But in its judgment on Wednesday, the tribunal, in an unanimous decision, held that both Melaye and his party failed to prove their claims in the petition.
According to the panel, the evidence of witnesses called by the petitioners were contradictory and as such unreliable.
The panel further held that claims of over voting and other alleged electoral malpractices were not substantiated both from documents presented and testimonies of witnesses.
The panel accordingly dismissed the petition for lacking in merit.
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