BREAKING : Appeal Court Sacks Akwa Ibom Governor Emmanuel, Orders Fresh Poll

The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Friday nullified the election of Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State on the grounds of irregularities that characterised the April 11, 2015 poll in the state.

The Justice Uwani Abba-Aji-led five man panel in a unanimous judgment, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct fresh election in the entire 31 local government areas of the state within 90 days.

The appeal court in nullifying Emmanuel’s election set aside the judgment of the Akwa Ibom State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which had only nullified the election in only 18 out of the 31 local government areas.

In the lead judgment read by Justice Oludotun Adeofope-Okojie, the appeal court upheld the appeal by the All Progressives Congress’ candidate in the election, Okon Umana, to the effect that the election was not conducted in substantial compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act.

It held that was over-voting during the election and the ‎the result announced by INEC returning Emmanuel of the Peoples Democratic Party as winner, was a mere allocation of figures as there was no evidence of collation of results at all levels.

It held that while the card reader machine recorded the accreditation of 437, 128 voters, the INEC announced total votes 1,222,836, leading to a clear evidence of over-voting.

Justice Adefope-Okojie conclude that both the PDP and Emmanuel failed to discharge the burden of proof placed on them by the evidence led by Umana and his party.

She held that Emmanuel and his party failed to tender incident forms used for manual accreditation to make up for the discrepancies in the number of voters accredited by the machine and the total number of votes announced by INEC.

Earlier today, the tribunal had delivered four judgments on appeals, two of which was filed by Emmanuel, and the rest of the two filed by PDP and INEC.

In which all the four appeals were dismissed by the appeal court for lacking in merit.

Emmanuel and others dissatisfied with the judgment still have the opportunity to appeal to the Supreme Court.