On Wednesday, the Supreme Court sitting in Abuja ruled in favor of Governor Udom Emmanuel, according to SaharaReporters correspondents at the scene. The ruling follows a long legal battle between Governor Emmanuel’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his opponent in the All Progressives Congress (APC) Umana Okon Umana stretching back to the dramatic April 11th, 2015 gubernatorial elections.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court sitting in Abuja ruled in favor of Governor Udom Emmanuel, according to SaharaReporters correspondents at the scene. The ruling follows a long legal battle between Governor Emmanuel’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his opponent in the All Progressives Congress (APC) Umana Okon Umana stretching back to the dramatic April 11th, 2015 gubernatorial elections.
The summary judgement was delivered today by a 7-man panel presided over by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mahmud Mohammed. The panel announced it will give the reasons for their judgement on February 15th.
Both the PDP and APC Parties in Akwa Ibom State submitted appeals for either a partial or total re-run election exercise with both citing violence and pervasive polling irregularities.
The Akwa Ibom State Election Petition Tribunal had earlier ordered a re-run in 18 of the 31 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the State. On December 18th, the Appeal Court nullified the election won by Governor Udom.
Governor Udom, however, was not satisfied with the judgements of the appeal court and he asked the apex court to set aside the decision of the court of appeal.