Appeal Court dismisses APC’s petition against Rivers Gov. Fubara, upholds election

An Appeal Court sitting in Lagos has affirmed the election of Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

The court dismissed the petition filed by the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Dr Patrick Tonye-Cole, against Fubara, PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The State Electoral Tribunal had dismissed Cole’s petition for lacking in merit and failure to prove that Fubara, was not qualified to contest the election.

Dissatisfied with the tribunal’s judgment, the APC candidate approached the appellate court to declare Tonye-Cole the legitimate winner of the of the March 11 governorship election in Rivers.

However, the court on Tuesday upheld the tribunal’s ruling which affirmed Fubara’s victory in October.

Perse recalls that Fubara had scored 302,614 votes to win the election in the Niger Delta state as officially declared by INEC after collating results from all the local government areas at its state headquarters in Port Harcourt.

Trailing Fubara is Tonye-Cole of the APC with 95,274 votes while Beatrice Itubo of the Labour Party scored 22,224 votes to place a distant third.