Tribunal Affirms Fubara’s Victory As Rivers Governor, Dismisses Cole’s Petition After APC’s Withdrawal

The Rivers State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has dismissed the petition of Mr Tonye Cole of the All Progressives Congress (APC) challenging the election of Siminalayi Fubara of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as the governor of the oil rich state.

The tribunal dismissed the petition saying that the APC that sponsored Cole had withdrawn the petition against Governor Fubara’s victory.

The tribunal sitting in Abuja had earlier dismissed the petitions filed by the governorship candidate of the Labour Party in Rivers State, Beatrice Itubo and that of Innocent Ekwu and the Allied People’s Movement (APM) for against the governor’s victory for lacking in merit.

It held that Ekwu lacked the locus standi to institute the petition as he didn’t contest the Rivers state Governorship election.

The Independent National Electoral Commission had PDP’s Fubara as the winner of the March 18 governorship election.

Related: Rivers Tribunal Strikes Out LP’s Petition Challenging Gov Fubara’s Victory

Fubara polled 302,614 votes to defeat his closet rival Tonye Cole of the APC who scored 95,274 votes while the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, Senator Magnus Abe, and Itubo came a distant third and fourth with 46,981 and 22,224 votes respectively.

Not satisfied with the declaration of Fubara as the winner of the election, the LP, APC and Ekwu filed petitions before the tribunal challenging the result.