BREAKING: Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan wins Central Senatorial seat at Appeal Court

The Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal on Tuesday declared Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan winner of Kogi Central Senatorial District.
The Court of Appeal upheld the judgement which earlier declared Akpoti-Uduaghan winner having scored the highest votes cast.

Akpoti-Uduaghan is of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party.

The parliamentary election was keenly contested on February 25, between Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of PDP and Abubakar Sadiku-Ohere of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a former Commissioner for Works in Governor Yahaya Bello administration.

The Appeal Court’s declaration of Akpoti-Uduaghan was at the backdrop of appeal filed by Sadiku-Ohere, after he was dissatisfied with the outcome of the Tribunal judgment.

But, a three-man panel of Justices of the appellate court affirmed the judgement of the Tribunal shortly after it dismissed Sadiku-Ohere’s appeal for lacking in merit.

According to the superior court, the appellant failed to provide convincing evidence why the judgement of the Tribunal should be set aside in his favour.

Justice Hamma Barka of the Appeal Court subsequently held that Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of the PDP, having won the majority of lawful votes cast at the poll, is winner of the Kogi Central Senatorial District poll.

recalls that Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan had contested the initial declaration of Sadiku-Ohere as winner of the election by INEC on the grounds that the electoral commission failed to input election results from Ajaokuta, Adavi and Okehi local government areas of the senatorial district, whose votes gave her the winning margin above Sadiku-Ohere.

The rejected and excluded results were then added to the overall results by the Tribunal, which then revealed that the PDP candidate won the majority of lawful votes cast at the poll.

The appellate court in rejecting the APC candidate’s appeal held that INEC, which has the duty of conducting and collating election results, failed to provide reasons why the results of the elections in the affected local government areas were rejected and excluded from the overall results in the first place.