Alex Enumah in Abuja 

A few days after it reserved judgment in the legal battle surrounding the September 21 governorship election in Edo State, the Supreme Court has announced Thursday July 10 for judgment.

The date for judgment was confirmed on Wednesday by sources at the apex court in Abuja.

A five-member panel of the apex court led by Justice Mohammed Lawal Garba, had last week Wednesday announced that their judgment has been reserved to a date that would be communicated to the counsel representing parties in the appeal by Mr Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), seeking to remove Senator Monday Okpebholo as Governor of Edo State.

Justice Garba made the announcement shortly after the lawyers concluded their submissions for and against the appeal.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winner of the September 21 governorship election, having won majority of the votes cast at the last year governorship election in Edo State.

However, Ighodalo, who came second at the polls, had disagreed with the electoral umpire, claiming that the body did not comply with the rules guiding the conduct of the poll, and in favour of APC’s Okpebholo.

Besides, he alleged that there were cases of over-voting in several polling units, which when deducted would show that he and not Okpebholo won the September 21 governorship election.

His claims were however dismissed by the Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, as well as the Court of Appeal, which affirmed the election of Governor Okpebholo.

Not satisfied, Ighodalo had last month approached the apex court to set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal which affirmed the judgment of the Edo tribunal, recognizing Okpebholo as the lawful winner of the governorship election.

He claimed that the appellate court perversed justice and misdirected itself when it unanimously held that the appellant did not prove the allegation of non-compliance and over-voting amongst others.

After listening to arguments for and against the appeal, the apex court had announced that judgment had been reserved.

INEC had declared Okpebholo winner of the September 21 governorship election, having polled 291,667 votes, while his closest challenger, Ighodalo of the PDP, got 247,274 votes.

Olumide Akpata, the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), finished a distant third with 22,763 votes.

But Ighodalo and the PDP approached the state Election Petition Tribunal to challenge the outcome.

They told the court that the governorship election was invalid because of alleged non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022. 

They also prayed the court to nullify the declaration of Okpebholo as the winner on the ground that the election was allegedly marred by irregularities.

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