Labour Party on Saturday scored a major victory as the Court of Appeal on Saturday dismissed the appeals by the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress, APC against the declaration of Governor Alex Otti as winner of the March 18, 2023 governorship election in Abia State.
Abia State is the only state presently controlled by Labour Party.The court, which relocated to Lagos, in a ruling on the appeals filed by the APC and PDP dismissed the issues for lack of merit asserting that the issues about qualification as pre-election matters which are not within the jurisdiction of the election appeal courts.
The appellate court dismissed the issues around qualification as pre-election matters just as it described the appeal as a huge joke .
The court deposed that it would amount to grave injustice to upstage the winners of the election through using technicality to put those who got fewer votes.
Noting that the appeals by APC’s Ikechi Emenike and PDP’s Okey Ahiwe could be likened to comedy skits referenced Abraham Lincoln as it traced the concept of democracy from its place birth of Greece as the will of the majority, declaring that the majority of the Abia electorate clearly voted Alex Otti as Governor.
The court as such dismissed the appeals with a cost of a million naira awarded against the appellants and in favour of the respondents and as such sustaining Otti as governor of Abia State.
