The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed six appeals filed against the election of Governor Douye Diri of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) as Governor of Bayelsa State.
A seven man panel of the court led by Justice Sylvester Ngwuta, in its first decision, dismissed the appeal by the Advanced Nigeria Democratic Party (ANDP) following its withdrawal by the appellant.
The court noted that the appellant’s claim of wrongful disqualification of its candidate by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was wrongly made because the said candidate did not meet the constitutional age requirement in the first place.
The other appeals dismissed on Wednesday are Alliance for Democracy (AD), Liberation Movement (LM) and Accord Party (AP).
Douye Diri contested under the umbrella of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and emerged second place in last year’s Governorship election in Bayelsa State. He was later declared winner after a Supreme Court judgement in Abuja disqualified David Lyon of the All Progressives Congress who had earlier emerged winner of the gubernatorial election the State.