The Supreme Court has affirmed the election of Siminalayi Fubara as governor of Rivers State.
In the judgment delivered on Thursday, Justice Ibrahim Saulawa, who led the five-member panel, dismissed the appeal filed by Tonye Cole and the All Progressives Congress as unmeritorious.
The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Partick Tonye Cole, had challenged the election of Governor Fubara on grounds that he wasn’t qualified to run for governor as he was still in the employ of the Rivers State government as Accountant General as at the time of the election.
Fubara of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was declared the winner of the governorship election after he scored 302,614 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Cole, who polled 95,274 votes.
Recall that both the Tribunal and Appeal Court had in concurrent judgments dismissed Cole’s appeal for lacking merit, and failure to provide credible evidence to prove his case of non-qualification, corrupt practices and non-compliance, thus affirming Fubara’s electoral victory.
The Supreme Court in its ruling upheld the decision of the Appellate Court on grounds that the APC governorship candidate failed to prove his allegations of over-voting and non-compliance levelled against the Rivers State governor.
