Former Bayelsa State Governor Timipre Sylva and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), have prayed the Supreme Court to void the election of Seriake Dickson as the state governor.
The request is among the reliefs in the appeal they filed before the apex court through their lawyer, Sebastine Hon (SAN).
They faulted the September 22 judgment of Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal, which upheld the decision of the Election Petitions Tribunal on July 26.
The tribunal had allowed the declaration of Dickson as the winner of the December 6, 2015 governorship election, with a supplementary poll on January 9.
Sylva and APC argued, among others, that the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to cancel the December 6, 2015 election in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area and reschedule it for last January 9 was a breach of the provision of Section26(1) of the Electoral Act 2010.
They also argued that elections had taken place in Southern Ijaw before INEC cancelled it because of alleged irregularities, which they said was not proved.
Sylva and his party are contending that the Court of Appeal misdirected itself and relied on hearsay to arrive at its conclusion that election did not take place in Southern Ijaw.
ýThey argued that the Court of Appeal shut its eye to documentary evidence, which the APC candidate and his party tendered to show that election actually took place in Southern Ijaw and that INEC went beyond its powers when it cancelled the election.
Sylva and APC added: “There was a body of oral and documentary evidence, particularly the unchallenged evidence of PW23, the Southern Ijaw Local Government Area Collation Officer, that election had taken place in the local government area and that collation had taken place in eight out of the 17 wards before it was truncated by the cancellation.”
They argued that the Court of Appeal erred in law when it placed the burden of proving that election was duly conducted in the disputed area on them, when the burden ought to have been placed on INEC.
“From the state of the pleadings, the first burden of proof was on INEC and not on the appellants,” they said.