Supreme Court upholds Enugu Governor’s election

The Supreme Court, on Friday, rejected the appeal brought forward by the All Progressives Congress and its candidate, Uche Nnaji, in the recent Enugu State governorship election.

They were contesting the victory of Governor Peter Mbah, who ran as the Peoples Democratic Party candidate.

Nnaji, who received only 14,575 votes compared to Mbah’s 160,895, came fourth in the election.

He had requested the court to disqualify Mbah, Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party, and Frank Nweke Jr. of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, claiming they were ineligible to run due to alleged violations of asset declaration laws, among other issues.

Nnaji’s petition was initially dismissed by the Enugu State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal led by Justice K.M Akano on June 20, 2023.

Unsatisfied with this outcome, Nnaji appealed to the Court of Appeal, seeking to have the dismissed petition returned to the Tribunal for a hearing and decision on the case.

However, the Enugu Division of the Court of Appeal upheld the Tribunal’s decision and dismissed the suit, further imposing a fine of N250,000 each on Nnaji and the APC.

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In its final judgment, a five-member panel of the Supreme Court found that the legal team of the APC and Nnaji had submitted an invalid brief of argument and failed to provide convincing reasons for the court to accept their incompetent brief. Justice Tijani Abubakar, delivering the lead judgment, ruled that the invalidity of the brief also affected the appeal for which it was filed, leading to the dismissal of both the brief and the appeal submitted by the appellants.