The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, on Thursday, upheld the election of Senator Monday Okpebholo as the validly elected Governor of Edo State.
The court dismissed the appeal file by Asue Ighodalo, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the September 21, 2024 governorship election in the state.
In its judgment, a three-member panel of the court led by Justice Mohammed Danjuma, unanimously held that the appeal by Ighodalo was unmeritorious and was accordingly dismissed.
The court held that the appellants failed to show that the election tribunal erred in its decision and proceeded to affirm the judgment earlier delivered by the tribunal.
However, Ighodalo has rejected the judgment, insisting that the verdict of the appellate court would be contested at the Supreme Court.
At the poll in September 2024, Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) scored 291,667 votes to defeat PDP’s Ighodalo who got 247,274 votes, while Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP) who came a distant third in the race garnered 22,763 votes.
Fourteen other candidates contested the seat but got less than the three frontline candidates.
The APC candidate cleared over 10 of the 18 local government areas, leaving the PDP candidate with marginal victory in other local councils.
The APC also won two of the three battleground senatorial districts in the state during the election.
Subsequently, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Okpebholo the winner do the election and he was sworn in as governor on November 12, 2024.
Dissatisfied with the outcome of the poll, Ighodalo approached the election petition tribunal to disqualify Okpebholo, but a three-member panel headed by Justice Wilfred Kpochi, in April 2025, dismissed the petition.
In its judgment, the panel ruled that Ighodalo, alongside other petitioners like the Accord Party, failed to call competent witnesses to prove the allegations of non-compliance with the Electoral Act.
In the lead judgment read by Justice Wilfred Kpochi, the tribunal said non-compliance must be proven convincingly.
It noted that the failure of the petitioners to call polling unit officers, presiding officers or even voters during the proved fatal to their petition.
Ighodalo further proceeded to the Appeal Court to seek redress but the appellate court threw out his case, leaving him with the Supreme Court as the last court of resort.
