Kogi gov’ship: Supreme Court dismisses Adeyemi’s appeal against Ododo

The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal by the former senator representing Kogi West Senatorial District, Senator Smart Adeyemi challenging the result of the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary in the state.

In a unanimous judgment by a three-member panel of justices, which was read by Justice Emmanuel Agim on Monday, the apex court held that the appeal lacked merit.

“On the whole, this whole appeal fails for lack of merit,” he said.

Adeyemi had challenged the primary that produced Ahmed Usman Ododo as the party’s standard bearer for the November 11 governorship election.

• Nigeria wins $11bn debt case against P&ID
• PHOTOS: Protesters gather outside Supreme Court as Atiku, Obi challenge Tinubu

However, the panel held that Adeyemi failed to show that the judgment of the court that was based on concurrent findings of fact by both the high court and the Court of Appeal was perverse.

The panel awarded the sum of N1 million each to the APC and Ododo.

Adeyemi’s suit with numbers: FHC/ABJ/CS/556/2023 asking the Federal High Court to declare APC’s primary that produced Usman Ododo as the candidate as illegal, unlawful and invalid for the November governorship election maintaining that the primary did not hold as provided in the law, was on July 12 dismissed by Justice James Omotosho.

Justice Omotosho had noted that the suit made an allegation of forgery of results of the primary which was criminal and ought to be proved beyond reasonable doubt, adding that failure to discharge the burden of proof by producing the forged results or the original, “is fatal to the case of the applicant”.

The Court of Appeal also agreed with the verdict and dismissed the appeal.