The election victory of Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State was not overturned by the Supreme Court.
The All Progressives Congress, APC, and its candidate in the state, Uche Nnaji, filed an appeal to contest the declaration of Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as the winner of the gubernatorial race.
A unanimous decision by a five-member panel of justices dismissed the appeal as incompetent.
The Supreme Court ruled that Nnaji and his party submitted an invalid brief of argument in its lead decision, which was written by Justice Tijani Abubakar. It was decided that the appellants had failed to provide any convincing evidence as to why the invalid process they filed should be used to throw out the election victory of Governor Mbah.
The appellants’ argument brief had a legal flaw, according to the supreme court, which ultimately affected the substantive appeal.
As a result, it found the appellants incompetent and dismissed their case.
As previously mentioned, the Enugu Court of Appeal dismissed Nnaji’s case against Mbah on July 18.
Even as it upheld the decision of the Enugu State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal, which confirmed governor Mbah’s election victory, the appellate court determined that the appeal with the file number CA/E/E/EP/GOV/EN/01/2023, lacked merit.
Additionally, Nnaji and the APC were each fined N250,000 by the appellate court for their costs.
At the conclusion of the Enugu State governorship election, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, announced that Mbah had received 160,895 votes in total, defeating Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party, LP, who received 157,552 votes.
Even though Frank Nweke Jr. Nnaji received 14,575 votes, placing her third among the All Progressives Grand Alliance, or APGA, with 17,983 votes.
