The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue state and its candidate in the 2023 Governorship Election, Titus Tyoapine Uba, have lodged an appeal against the ruling of the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal in the state which affirmed the victory of Governor Hyacinth Alia.
The Tribunal, presided by Justice Ibrahim Mohammed Karaye, had on September 24, dismissed the petition brought by PDP and Uba challenging the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) declaration of Governor Hyacinth Alia as the winner of the 2023 Gubernatorial election in the state.
Justice Karaye, who delivered the lead judgment, said that the issues raised by the petitioners were pre-election and ought to have been entertained by the Federal High Court and not the Tribunal.
The PDP, represented by its legal team, is presently at the Court of Appeal challenging the tribunal’s ruling on sixteen grounds, one of which revolves around the Tribunal’s alleged legal misinterpretation regarding its jurisdiction to handle both petitions.
The party and its candidate contested the Tribunal’s determination, saying that their grounds for the petition were post-election in nature, contrary to the Tribunal’s classification as pre-election, despite explicit statutory provisions and rulings from higher courts suggesting otherwise.
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The party in a statement signed by the Publicity Secretary Bemgba Iortyom said: “It is confident that the petition was established before the Tribunal as the documentary depositions made by Governor Alia’s running mate, Samuel Ode, were forged and that he was not a candidate to the election on the account that his name was not submitted to INEC alongside that of Alia for the election as expressly required by law.
“PDP and Engr. Uba reiterates faith in the Judiciary and remains optimistic that the Appellate court will set aside the judgment of the Tribunal and deliver substantive justice to their petition, in line with the hopes of the people that the Judiciary will always be their last hope.
“By sustaining the challenge to the outcome of the 2023 governorship election in Benue State, the party believes it is deepening the culture of democracy and sanitizing the process of leadership recruitment which alone will ensure that its legacy of development in the state is kept alive and improved upon by the right choice of leaders.
“We insist that a government’s sole claim to legitimacy lies in its emergence through the due process prescribed and regulated by the rule of law, outside of which, no one, no matter his assumptions of populism and self-righteousness, may lay his hands on the sacred mandate of the people.”