The Court of Appeal in Lagos has dismissed the appeal by governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour against the election of Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
In a unanimous decision delivered on Wednesday by the three-member panel led by Yargata Nimpar, the appellate court affirmed the judgement of the Election Petitions Tribunal that upheld the victory of Sanwo-Olu as the elected governor of Lagos in the March 11 election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Sanwo-Olu as the winner of the March 11 Lagos governorship election.
Sanwo-Olu polled 762,134 votes to defeat his close challenger, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the LP who scored 312,329 votes while.
Abdulazeez Adediran of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came a distant third with 62,449 votes.
On September 25, the Lagos governorship election tribunal dismissed the case filed by Rhodes-Vivour seeking to nullify the election of Sanwo-Olu.
Dissatisfied with the verdict, the LP candidate filed 21 grounds of appeal challenging the judgement of the tribunal.
The judgement was read by Samuel Bola, a member of the panel, while Yargata Nimpar and Paul Bassey concurred with the verdict.
The panel dismissed the issues raised by Rhodes-Vivour in his appeal against the verdict of the tribunal.
The panel also held that the appellant did not provide enough evidence to support his claim that Sanwo-Olu and his running mate, Obatemi Hamzat, were not qualified to contest the election.
The panel also held that the tribunal was right to strike out the testimonies of three witnesses presented by the appellants.
The appellate court upheld the decision of the tribunal on the rejection of Rhodes-Vivour’s witness, who gave testimony about the alleged renunciation of Nigerian citizenship by Obafemi Hamzat, Lagos deputy governor.
The appellate court consequently held that Rhodes-Vivour’s appeal was unmeritorious.
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