The Supreme Court has affirmed the election of Governor Monday Okpebholo of Edo State.
In a unanimous decision by a five-member panel led by Justice Mohammed Garba, the apex court argued that Ighalo’s petition seeking to annul Okpebholo’s election lacked merit.
According to the Supreme Court, it found no reason to set aside the concurrent judgments of both the Court of Appeal and the Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which returned Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the valid winner of the gubernatorial contest.
It held that the Appellant (Ighodalo) failed to adduce credible and admissible evidence to substantiate his claim that the election was marred by irregularities that included over-voting and substantial non-compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act.
Likewise, it held that the Appellant failed to call relevant witnesses to demonstrate some of the evidence he tendered in support of his case, especially the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines.
It held that some of the proof of evidence, which were tendered, were merely dumped on the tribunal without establishing alleged non-compliance in 432 out of a total of 4,519 polling units in the state.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had on September 24, 2025, declared Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) the winner of the Edo state governorship election, which took place on Saturday, September 21.
INEC’s Returning Officer for the poll, Prof Faruk Kuta, who announced the results, said Okpebholo polled 291,667 votes to defeat Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who got 247,274 votes, and Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP), who came a distant third in the race with 22,763 votes. Fourteen other candidates contested the seat but got fewer votes than the three frontline candidates.
Ighodalo had contested the results, claiming the election was marred by a lot of irregularities.
