Kogi Guber: Adeyemi, Achimugu Ask S’Court to Void Ododo’s Nomination
Alex Enumah in Abuja
Convinced that Mr Ahmed Ododo could not lawfully fly the flag of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the forthcoming governorship election in Kogi State, two aggrieved aspirants have asked the Supreme Court to void Ododo’s nomination by his party.
Specifically, Senator Smart Adeyemi and Mr. Abubakar Achimugu, who contested the party’s ticket during the primary election urged the apex court to upturn the judgments of the Court of Appeal and Federal High Court, which recognised that Ododo was validly nominated by the APC.
The appellate court had in two separate judgments last month, dismissed Adeyemi and Achimugu’s appeals for lacking merit.
In the lead judgment delivered by Justice Muhammed Shuaibu, the appellate court had held that the appellants failed to prove their case, adding that the burden of proof lay on the one who alleged irregularities in the conduct of the APC primary.
But Adeyemi in the appeal said to have been filed last Friday, argued that the lower court erred when it arrived at the conclusion that he did not prove allegations contained in his suit.
The former Senator, who represented Kogi West at the 9th Senate submitted amongst others that as a result of the irregularities, the results announced at the end of the April 14 direct primary election were not in consonance with the results the committee claimed to have collated across the wards in the state; that in the process of allocating votes to the various aspirants, the election committee decided to allot a bogus 78,704 votes to Ododo and 311 votes – the least number of votes to Adeyemi.
The appellant added that the number of votes announced for Ododo was higher than the figure recorded while that for Adeyemi was lower, respectively.
He claimed that the election held in only 11 wards in Kotonkarfe Local Government, excluding 228 wards out of the 239 electoral wards in total; that direct primary election mode allowed party members to vote for their preferred aspirants at designated units in each of the 239 wards; that contrary to the provisions of the electoral act 2022 (as amended), votes were merely allocated to aspirants.
