Guber election: Supreme Court upholds Ortom, Fintiri’s election

The Supreme Court has on Tuesday upheld the election of governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State and his Adamawa State counterpart, Ahmadu Umar Fintiri.

The apex court, in the unanimous judgment in the appeals challenging the election of the two state governors, held that they were duly elected and dismissed the appeals challenging their elections.

In the case of Ortom, who contested and won the election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Justice Sylvester Ngwuta, who delivered the judgment held that “I have considered all the issues raised in the appeal and I have come to the conclusion that the concurrent decisions of the two lower courts ought not to be disturbed.

This appeal is hereby dismissed for lacking in merit”, the court held.

The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Emmanuel Jime had challenged Governor Samuel Ortom’s victory at the poll before the state Governorship election petition tribunal and at the Court of Appeal and lost.

He then filed an appeal at the Supreme Court and asked the court to set aside the judgments of the two lower court and sack Ortom from the Benue state government house.

Counsel to Jime, Yusuf Ali (SAN) had earlier urged the apex court to nullify Ortom’s election, saying that the disparity between the number of accredited voters recorded by the smart card reader machines used for the conduct of the election and the number of votes recorded had rendered the election invalid.

There must be an agreement between the number of accredited voters and the total votes,” he said.