The verdict of the Kogi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which on Saturday, in Abuja, dismissed the petition by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its Governorship Candidate, Engr. Musa Wada, and instead declared Governor Yahaya Bello of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as the winner of the November 16, Governorship election in the State, will be appealed.
Delivering the judgement in Abuja, the Tribunal said that the petition by the PDP and its Candidate lacked merit, pointing out that the Petitioners could not prove their case beyond reasonable doubt.
Justice Kashim G. Kaigama, on behalf of the three-man panel of Justices, consequently dismissed the petition by Wada and the PDP.
However, in a swift reaction, the PDP and its flag-bearer, Wada, have said that they would appeal the judgement, describing it as a miscarriage of justice.
The Spokesman of Wada, Austin Okai, lamented that the Tribunal went on an adventure and looked the other way, without looking at the issues raised by the Petitioners.
He assured that the judgement would be tested at the Court of Appeal.
Wada and the PDP had in a petition marked EPT/KG/GOV/06/2019, challenged Governor Yahaya Bello’s victory at the November Governorship election in the State.
The Petitioners alleged that the Gubernatorial election was marred by violence, over-voting, and manipulation of figures, and prayed the Tribunal to declare Wada and his party as the winner of the election, having scored the highest number of valid votes.
In the election, Wada scored 189,704 votes to emerge first runner-up, while Yahaya Bello got 406,222 votes, defeating other contestants by an unprecedented wide margin of 216,518 votes.