{"id":123914,"date":"2024-07-11T15:17:45","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T14:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/appeal-court-affirms-ododo-as-kogi-gov-dismisses-ajakas-suit"},"modified":"2024-07-11T16:30:25","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T15:30:25","slug":"appeal-court-affirms-ododo-as-kogi-gov-dismisses-ajakas-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/appeal-court-affirms-ododo-as-kogi-gov-dismisses-ajakas-suit","title":{"rendered":"Appeal Court affirms Ododo as Kogi gov, dismisses Ajaka\u2019s suit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Thursday, affirmed Ahmed Usman Ododo of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as the validly elected governor of Kogi state.<\/p>\n<p>A 3-member Justices of the Court in a unanimous judgment held that the Social Democratic Party, SDP, and its governorship candidate, Murtala Yakubu Ajaka failed to prove the allegations contained in their petition challenging Ododo\u2019s election beyond reasonable doubt as required by law.<\/p>\n<p>The appellate court said the Kogi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which sat in Abuja was right to have expunged the evidence of the first witness called by the petitioners for been hearsay documents.<\/p>\n<p>According to the court, the allegation of forgery of documents which Ododo submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is a pre-election matter which should be handled by the Federal High Court and not the Tribunal.<\/p>\n<p>Having resolved all the issues raised in the appeal against the appellants, the court dismissed the appeal for lacking in merit and upheld the judgement of the Tribunal.<\/p>\n<p>It would be recalled that the tribunal had, on May 27, affirmed the victory of Ododo in the November 11, 2023 Kogi State governorship poll.<\/p>\n<p>The three-member panel of justices, held that the petition was bereft of substance and accordingly dismissed it.<\/p>\n<p>Ajaka and his party approached the Court of Appeal seeking an order setting aside the judgement of the Tribunal, an order restoring the testimony of their first witness (PW1) as well as all the documents they tendered that were expunged from the records of the Tribunal.<\/p>\n<p>The appellants also asked the Appeal Court to hold that Ododo was not even qualified to have contested the election into the office of Governor of Kogi State and that all votes ascribed and or allocated to him and the APC are wasted votes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About Nigeria Follow Africa-Press<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Thursday, affirmed Ahmed Usman Ododo of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as the validly elected governor of Kogi state. A 3-member Justices of the Court in a unanimous judgment held that the Social Democratic Party, SDP, and its governorship candidate, Murtala Yakubu Ajaka failed to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":123912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[1135,1578,396,254,10244],"class_list":["post-123914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-appeal-court","tag-breaking","tag-kogi","tag-nigeria","tag-ododo"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Appeal Court affirms Ododo as Kogi gov, dismisses Ajaka\u2019s suit - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Thursday, affirmed Ahmed Usman Ododo of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as the valid ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/appeal-court-affirms-ododo-as-kogi-gov-dismisses-ajakas-suit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Appeal Court affirms Ododo as Kogi gov, dismisses Ajaka\u2019s suit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Thursday, affirmed Ahmed Usman Ododo of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as the valid ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/appeal-court-affirms-ododo-as-kogi-gov-dismisses-ajakas-suit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-07-11T14:17:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-07-11T15:30:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2024\/07\/sm_1720698939.628258.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"899\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/appeal-court-affirms-ododo-as-kogi-gov-dismisses-ajakas-suit#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/appeal-court-affirms-ododo-as-kogi-gov-dismisses-ajakas-suit\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Appeal Court affirms Ododo as Kogi gov, dismisses Ajaka\u2019s suit\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-07-11T14:17:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-07-11T15:30:25+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/appeal-court-affirms-ododo-as-kogi-gov-dismisses-ajakas-suit\"},\"wordCount\":321,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/appeal-court-affirms-ododo-as-kogi-gov-dismisses-ajakas-suit#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2024\/07\/sm_1720698939.628258.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Appeal Court\",\"breaking\",\"Kogi\",\"Nigeria\",\"Ododo\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/appeal-court-affirms-ododo-as-kogi-gov-dismisses-ajakas-suit#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/appeal-court-affirms-ododo-as-kogi-gov-dismisses-ajakas-suit\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/appeal-court-affirms-ododo-as-kogi-gov-dismisses-ajakas-suit\",\"name\":\"Appeal Court affirms Ododo as Kogi gov, dismisses Ajaka\u2019s suit - 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