Following the Cross Appeal Filed by the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance in the April 11 and 25th Supplementary governorship election in Abia State Dr Alex Otti against the judgement of Justice Oyebisi Omoleye led five-member Appeal court panel, facts has shown that he may Loose the case at the Apex court.
Recall that on the 31st of December 2015, the Owerri division of the Court of Appeal headed by Justice Oyebisi Omoleye delivered a controversial judgement which saw three Local Government Areas being cancelled before Alex Otti was declared winner.
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A lot of errors has been discovered in the Judgement of the Court of Appeal which has been widely criticised by Senior Advocates of Nigeria.
One of the Errors discovered in the rulling was where the Judge upheld the ruling of Justice Usman Bwala led Abia governorship election petition tribunal which ruled that the Returning Officer of the Abia State Governorship election Prof Benjamin Ozumba had no Powers to cancel an already uploaded results and went ahead to declare Alex Otti winner of the Abia State Governorship election.
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The question now is, How did the Jurist arrived at the controversial Judgement?
Since the Appeal Court vindicated the Tribunal on the powers of the Returning Officer, why didn’t the Court order for a rerun?
In the Supreme Court Judgement on Zamfara State Governor Mallam Abdullazeez Yari of the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, the Judge set standard to be met before the issue of over-voting can be said to have been proved beyond reasonable doubts.
In the case of Alex Otti, he never testified at the Tribunal
,nor call witnesses from all units, wards in the three LGA’s of Obingwa Osisioma and Isialangwa North.
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With the faulting of the Appeal Court verdict, it is now clear that Alex Otti’s Appeal may be dismissed by the Supreme Court panel for abuse of Court Process.
