The Court of Appeal in Calabar has upheld the judgement of the tribunal affirming the election of Udom Emmanuel as governor of Akwa Ibom State.
Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nsima Ekere, had petitioned the appellate court to upturn the September 5 verdict of the tribunal.
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The five-man appeal court on Wednesday unanimously also dismissed Mr Ekere’s petition for lack of merit.
The appellate court first affirmed the decision of the tribunal rejecting a series of documents filed by the petitioner at the tribunal and held that the reasoning of the tribunal were unassailable, ruling that the documents, which were all public documents, could not be admissible if they were not properly brought as certified true copies of the public documents sought to be tendered.
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The court noted that out of the results of 21 Local Government Areas challenged, the petitioner did not lead any evidence in proof of their case in eight and led very scanty evidence which on cross-examination were rendered very impotent in the other local governments where they made any effort to prove their claims.
The court awarded the cost of N500,000 in favour of the first respondent (the governor) to be paid by the appellants.
