The Rivers State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja yesterday dismissed the petition filed by the governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the March 18 gubernatorial election in the state, Beatrice Itubo, challenging the election of Simnalayi Fubara of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
A three-member panel of the tribunal, led by Justice Cletus Emifonye, in a judgment yesterday, dismissed the petition for lacking in merit, and for failing to prove their allegations.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Fubara as the winner of the governorship election after he polled 302,614 votes to defeat his closet rival, Tonye Cole of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who scored 95,274 votes, while the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, Senator Magnus Abe, and Itubo came a distant third and fourth, with 46,981 and 22,224 votes respectively.
Dissatisfied with the outcome of the poll, the LP and the APC filed separate petitions before the tribunal to challenge the election victory of the PDP and its candidate, Fubara.
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However, ruling on the LP’s petition yesterday, the Justice Emifonye-led tribunal dismissed the petition for lacking in merit.
Also, the tribunal sitting in Abuja has dismissed the petition filed by Innocent Ekwu and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) challenging the election of Governor Fubara of the PDP for lacking in merit.
The tribunal, in a judgement delivered yesterday also awarded a cost of N500,000 against the petitioners in favour of the respondents.
It held that Ekwu lacked the locus standi (Legal right) to file the petition as he didn’t contest the Rivers state Governorship election.
Whyte Churchill was the candidate that contested under the platform of APM in the March 18, 2023 governorship election held in Rivers State.
The tribunal, however, dismissed the two issues, bordering on non-qualification and noncompliance with the electoral laws, raised by the petitioners for being incompetent and lacking in merit.
