The Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Delta State has challenged the March 18, 2023 governorship election in the State before Election Petition Tribunal.
The opposition party asked the Tribunal to void the declaration of the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Sheriff Oborevwori, as the winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The party said for Delta State to make progress, an atmosphere of renewed honesty and purposeful character must reign and be allowed to exist.
“This is why we are maintaining three basic grounds stating that all the other parties and their candidates are not qualified.
“Secondly, the election itself was not conducted in line with the Electoral Act 2022 as amended and other statutory provisions.
And thirdly, it was marred by massive rigging and other electoral malpractices.
“We maintain that those who attempted to contest the election are not qualified for the race,” the SDP governorship candidate, Kenneth Gbagi, said, adding that its prayer was to “remove persons who have no business contesting governorship election in the state. Delta State needs a renewed atmosphere of honesty, and purposeful character.”
He continues: “In the election, there was lots of malpractice, vote-buying, food being cooked for people, wrappers being bought for them, all of these are part of what the Electoral Act spelt out to be a crime. My petition has encompassed all of that and I believe strongly that the judiciary would do what they ought to do.
“If you declare a result that has nothing to do with the Bimodal Voters Verification System, BVAS, the result stands cancelled. The fact will speak for itself. Maybe people thought that it is business as usual, we did not go into the election for a joke, we meant what we wanted to do, and we planned for it.”
In the petition signed by the SDP governorship candidate, Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi, he said “we are contending that as at the time of the election, Oborevwori was not qualified to run for the office of governor and also did not meet the requirement to be elected and returned by majority of lawful votes.
“We are joined in the suit as co-defendants were INEC, PDP, All Progressives Congress, APC, and its governorship candidate, Ovie Omo-Agege, and other governorship candidates in the state and their parties.”
Gbagi was contending that aside Oborevwori, other candidates, including Ovie Omo-Agege and Great Ogboru of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) respectively including Ken Pela of the Labour Party (LP) were also not qualified to run for the office of governor in the state.
In the argument against Oborevwori’s declaration as governor-elect by INEC, Gbagi contended that Oborebwori in an attempt to meet the constitutional requirements of eligibility for the 2023 governorship election, presented a fake Declaration of Age/Affidavit in support of personal particulars in Form C.F.001.
“We averred that Oborevwori’s Statutory Declaration of Age/Affidavit deposed to in 2022 contains a different age contrary to what African Senior School Certificate, WASSC, dated June 1999 with Certificate Number 384793.
“We maintain that Oborevwori lied under oath that he does not have Primary School Certificate, Secondary School Certificate, and his university degree, whereas, in 2018, he exhibited the same with his Form C.F.001.
We also argued that a suit challenging the qualification of Oborevwori to contest the election was filed and decided at the Federal High Court, Asaba based on forged credentials, contrary to the principle laid down by the supreme court in Saleh v. Abah, (2017) 12 (NWLR) PT. 1578 AT P. 100,” he added.
Gbagi also asked the Tribunal to declare him as the only qualified candidate for the election, nullify the certificate of return issued by INEC to Oborevwori and order INEC to issue a fresh certificate of return to him as winner of the election.
In the alternative, Gbagi also prayed the Tribunal to order a fresh election due to irregularities that characterised the election and non-compliance to the election guideline on the use of the BVAS.
“We are happy that the Tribunal has granted my party, SDP’s separate prayers, that: ‘In line with Section 146 of the Electoral Act, 2022, this Tribunal hereby
grants an order directing the 1st Respondent forthwith to allow the
Applicants and/or their representatives to inspect polling documents and
obtain Certified True Copies of all polling documents in the custody of the
1st Respondent used for the just concluded Governorship Elections held on
the 18th March 2023 to enable the Applicants institute and maintain an
election Petition. The Applicants are allowed to inspect and obtain
Certified True Copies of any other documents or packet in the custody of
the Chief National Electoral Commissioner this Honourable Tribunal
being satisfied that the order required is for the purpose of maintaining an
election Petition.’
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