Appeal Court Upholds Ireti Kingebe As FCT Senator

The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja on Wednesday dismissed the application filed by former Senator Philip Aduda of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against the election victory of Senator Ireti Kingibe, the lawmaker representing the Federal Capital Territory on the Labour Party platform.

The judgment delivered via Zoom, held that the appeal lacked merit.

Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Returning Officer for the FCT senatorial election, Prof. Sani Saka, had declared Kingibe the winner of the poll after garnering 202,175 votes.

She defeated Senator Aduda who garnered 100,544 votes and came second.

But Aduda’s legal team approached the national assembly election petitions tribunal sitting in Abuja, seeking the nullification of Kingibe’s victory.

Aduda’s legal team had alleged that the collation of results across the FCT area councils was yet to be concluded when Kingibe was declared the winner.

The tribunal, however, dismissed Aduda’s petition for lacking in merit while upholding Kingibe’s victory at the February 25 polls.

Aduda’s legal team disagreed with the tribunal’s verdict and applied to the Court of Appeal, seeking to set aside the judgment.

But Ireti’s team argued before the Court of Appeal that Aduda’s petition was rightly dismissed.

In his judgment on Wednesday, Justice Daniel Kahiru held that Aduda did not tender the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine data and Voter Register to prove irregularities.

He held the appellants also failed to prove overvoting while affirming Ireti as winner.

“All the issues in this appeal are resolved against the appellant,” the judge held.