The Senate has sworn in Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan as Senator representing Kogi Central.
By Emma Ogbuehi
The Senate has sworn in Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan as Senator representing Kogi Central.
She was administered the oath by the Clerk of the Senate at exactly 11:41 a.m.
Akpoti-Uduaghan’s election, which was confirmed by the Kogi National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal, was upheld by the Appeal Court on Monday.
Her opponent and candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Abubakar Ohere, had challenged her electoral victory at the lower court. He lost and went on to challenge this at the appellate court.
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The appellate court, in its ruling, upheld the earlier judgment of the Tribunal.
A three-man panel of the appellate court dismissed Sadiku-Ohere’s appeal for lacking in merit.
According to the court, the appellant failed to provide convincing evidence why the declaration of Akpoti-Uduaghan as winner of the poll should be set aside.
The Tribunal had declared, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, the PDP candidate, as the authentic Senator of Kogi Central with lawful votes of 54,354. Ohere of APC scored 51,291 votes.
Akpoti-Uduaghan had contested the initial declaration of Sadiku-Ohere as winner of the election by INEC on the grounds that the electoral commission failed to input election results from Ajaokuta, Adavi and Okehi local government areas of the senatorial district, whose votes gave her the winning margin above Sadiku-Ohere.
The rejected and excluded results were then added to the overall results by the tribunal, which then revealed that the PDP candidate won the majority of lawful votes cast at the poll.