The Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal has upheld the return of Duoye Diri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the duly elected governor of Bayelsa State.
The court dismissed the petition filed by the Labour Party (LP) and its governorship candidate, Udengmobofa Eradiri, challenging Diri’s emergence as governor.
A three-man panel of the appellate court, in its ruling, affirmed the decision of the tribunal, which had earlier dismissed the LP’s petition for lacking merit.
The court held that the tribunal was correct in stating that the appellants’ petition was abandoned, as it was not signed by either the petitioners or their counsel, as required by law.
Furthermore, the court ruled that the attachment of alleged forged documents to form EC8 submitted to INEC by the 3rd respondent was a pre-election matter that should not have been brought to the tribunal.
The panel concluded that Eradiri and his party failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove allegations of non-qualification and certificate forgery against Governor Diri and his deputy, as contained in their petition. The appeal panel awarded a cost of N200,000 against the appellant in favour of each of the respondents in the appeal.
