The Court of Appeal in Abuja has dismissed the case filed by
the Independent National Electoral Commission challenging the inclusion of the
governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party, Natasha Akpoti, in the
November 16 election in Kogi State.
On November 7, 2019, a Federal High Court in Abuja ordered
INEC to restore Akpoti as candidate of the SDP in the governorship election.
Following the directive, the electoral body appealed against
the ruling on the ground that the lower court erred in law by a miscarriage of
justice.
However, before the case with suit number CA/A/1123/2019
between INEC and Akpoti was dismissed, counsel to INEC, Alhassan Umar (SAN),
pleaded that the case be withdrawn since the election had been concluded.
He said, “We respectfully apply that the appeal is withdrawn
since the election which is the subject of the matter had been conducted.”
In his response, counsel to the respondent, Mr A.S
Oguajamma, conceded to the request.
In the certified copy of the judgment made available on
January 10, 2020, Justices Stephen Adah, Emmanuel Agim and Mohammed Idris
dismissed the appeal after the appellant had withdrawn the matter.
They held, “The appeal, having been withdrawn by the
appellant is hereby dismissed under Order 11, rule five of the rules of this
court.”
In her reaction to the dismissal, Akpoti said her unjust
disqualification by the electoral body on September 24, 2019, caused her great
loss of followership and voters in the election.
She added that despite the order by the lower court on
November 9, 2019, the name of her party, SDP, was hand-written on the result
sheets in some areas while in other areas it was not reflected.
She said, “On November 7, 2019, which was nine days to the
election and seven days to the close of campaigning, the Federal High Court
granted me the judgment and I had a chance to campaign for only five days.
“The unjust disqualification of my party cost me a great
loss of followers who assumed my party wasn’t going to be on the ballot. It
also caused a lot of physical and emotional stress to my person.
“Some polling units recorded the SDP’s result with pencils,
some pens, and crayons, while many failed to record scores for SDP as the INEC
officers forgot in the heat of crisis thereby costing me a lot of votes.”
Akpoti has however, filed a petition at the Kogi
Governorship Elections Tribunal to challenge the outcome of the November 16,
2019, election.
0 Comments