The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the election of Alex Otti as the duly elected governor of Abia.

Justice Uwani Abba-Aji, while delivering the judgment, dismissed the appeal against Mr Otti’s victory.

She held that the appeal by the PDP lacked merit.

The appeals were lodged against Mr Otti, who won his election on the platform of the Labour Party (LP) by the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Okey Ahiwe, and his counterpart in the All Progressives Congress (APC) Ikechi Emenike.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared that Mr Otti polled 175,466 votes to defeat his closest rival, Mr Ahiwe of the PDP, who scored 88,529 in the gubernatorial poll on March 18, 2023.

Dissatisfied with the election outcome, Messrs Ahiwe and Emenike of the APC, who came in third, separately challenged it.

However, in a judgement delivered on October 6, 2023, the Abia State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal dismissed the petitions and upheld Mr Otti’s election victory.

The tribunal’s verdict was affirmed by the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal, which also dismissed appeals that were entered against Mr Otti by both the PDP and APC candidates.

(NAN)