The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its final decision in the legal challenge seeking to unseat Governor Monday Okpebholo of Edo State.
The court will decide the fate of the governor after hearing an appeal filed by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its candidate, Asuerinme Ighodalo. The appeal, with case number SC/CV/536/2025, represents the last attempt by the PDP to nullify the result of the September 21, 2024 governorship election.
Ighodalo and the PDP have asked the nation’s highest court to overturn the May 29 judgement of the Court of Appeal, which had confirmed Governor Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as the rightful winner of the election. Their lawyers argued that the lower court did not properly consider their claims that the election failed to meet the standards of the Electoral Act.
During the hearing, a five-member panel of justices led by Justice Garba Lawal listened to the final arguments from all sides before adjourning to a later date for judgement. The court announced that the date for the final verdict would be communicated to all parties involved.
The PDP and its candidate are pleading with the court to cancel the decisions of both the Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal. In response, lawyers for the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Governor Okpebholo, and the APC requested that the court dismiss the appeal and uphold the election results.
This case reached the Supreme Court after the petitioners were defeated at the lower courts. A three-member panel of the Appeal Court, headed by Justice M. A. Danjuma, had previously ruled that there was no basis to remove Governor Okpebholo from office. The appellate court supported the initial May 15 decision of the election tribunal, which had also validated the election.
The tribunal, led by Justice Wilfred Kpochi, had dismissed the PDP’s petition, describing it as lacking merit. It also threw out similar cases from the Action Alliance and the Accord Party.
According to the results announced by INEC, Okpebholo of the APC received 291,667 votes, while Ighodalo of the PDP polled 247,655 votes. Unhappy with this outcome, the PDP and Ighodalo claimed that the election was marred by irregularities. In their petition, they argued that Governor Okpebholo did not win the highest number of valid votes. They specifically pointed to alleged wrong computation of results in 765 polling units and accused INEC of failing to properly handle sensitive election materials, which they claimed helped the APC to rig the poll.
To support their case at the tribunal, the petitioners presented 19 witnesses and tendered 153 Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, machines as evidence. They insisted that results were manipulated at collation centres, leading to over-voting in favour of Governor Okpebholo.
However, the tribunal ruled that the petitioners did not provide enough credible evidence to justify cancelling the election. It stated that the responsibility to prove the allegations rested on the PDP and Ighodalo, and they failed to do so. The tribunal noted that the petitioners had “merely dumped exhibits before it” without properly explaining them through competent witnesses. It also found that many of the witnesses gave hearsay evidence and that the failure to bring polling unit agents or actual voters to testify was a major weakness in their case.
