The Court of Appeal in Abuja has upheld the re-election of Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State.
The three-judge panel dismissed the appeal filed by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Timipre Sylva, as incompetent and an abuse of court process.
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The appeal challenged the decision of the Bayelsa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which had previously dismissed the petition against Diri’s re-election.
The tribunal found that the APC and Sylva failed to provide credible evidence to support their claims of irregularities in the November 11, 2023 election.
The court affirmed the tribunal’s ruling that the additional evidence and witness statements submitted by the petitioners were inadmissible due to late filing, which violated the legal requirement that all evidence must be submitted within 21 days of the election results being declared.
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The tribunal also rejected allegations that Deputy Governor Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo had submitted forged academic and NYSC certificates to INEC, stating that these were pre-election issues that should have been addressed earlier in a different court.
Sylva and the APC’s plea for the court to declare them the rightful winners was contradicted by their request for the election to be annulled, further weakening their case.
The tribunal emphasized that the petitioners did not meet the burden of proof to substantiate their claims of electoral irregularities.
Ultimately, the tribunal upheld the results announced by INEC, which declared Governor Diri the winner with 175,196 votes against Sylva’s 110,108 votes.
