BY Ikechukwu Nnochiri
ABUJA—Supreme Court, yesterday, dismissed an appeal challenging the victory of Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan in the January 6 governorship election re-run in Delta State.

Candidate of Democratic Peoples Party, DPP, in the election, Chief Great Ogboru, lodged the suit before the apex court.

Delivering judgment on the case yesterday, Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Dahiru Musdapher, threw out the suit on the premise that the court lacked the requisite jurisdiction to meddle in the matter.

In a unanimous decision of a five-man panel of justices that presided over the matter, the court held that the new amendments to the 1999 Constitution which gave the Supreme Court the jurisdiction to hear appeals in guberna-torial matters, was limited to appeal of general elec-tions held after the amend-ment came into force.

The court held that as at when the contested election was held, the appellate court stood as the last bus stop for gubernatorial disputes, stressing that though the constitution has been amended, it could not take retroactive effect on the case.

Consequently, the panel equally applied the same principle and dismissed a similar appeal that sought to sack Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State from office.

Relying on the new amendments to the 1999 Constitution, CJN held that: “It is for this reason that I am of the firm view that this court has no jurisdiction to hear this appeal emanating from the result of the election of Governor Peter Obi which was months before the amendments.”

It will be recalled that Chief Ogboru approached the Supreme Court for redress following the refusal of both the election petition tribunal and appellate court in Benin to nullify the election.

The lower courts had in their separate judgments, upheld the declaration of Uduaghan as winner of the election.

The courts held that the petitioner failed to prove allegation that the election was fraught with manifest irregularities.

However, Ogboru’s counsel, Mr. Mogbeyi Sagay, SAN, had insisted that the issue of burden of proof was an issue of law that does not shift until the party on whom the law places the burden has fully discharged such burden.

According to him, INEC had tendered the relevant documents before the tribunal without reference to any local government or voting unit to which ballot papers were tied to show that it conducted the election properly.

On the issue of accreditation, Sagay argued that INEC had failed to prove that accreditation took place in all the places the petitioner was challenging the credibility in the conduct of the election.

He said that the ballot papers were not referable to form EC 8, contending that Section 150 of the Electoral Act could not apply in this case when there was no substantial compliance with the Act.

In his reply, lead counsel to Uduaghan, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, urged the court to dismiss the appeal for lacking either merit in law or in fact.

He argued that the assertion of the negative by appellant “does not change the position of the law in section 135, 136 and 137 sub-Section 1 of the Evidence Act.’’

He maintained that the burden was always on the petitioner to prove.

Olanipekun further argued that section 150 (1) indicates that result declared by INEC was presumed to be correct and regular, saying that the case of Ogboru versus Udugahan cited by the petitioners’ counsel was not a ‘talisman’, as he did not meet the standard of proof.

He said the tribunal was right and still right in holding that the petitioner did not prove any case of non-compliance with the Electoral Act or how the non-compliance affected the result of the election.

His legal argument was upheld by the appellate court, a decision that culminated to the appeal that was dismissed by the apex court yesterday.