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Tribunal upholds Uduaghan's election

The Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal in Asaba on Friday upheld the election of Gov. Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta.


In his judgment, Justice Joy Unwana, the Chairman of the tribunal, said that Uduaghan scored the highest lawful vote cast in the April 26 governorship election.
In the judgment which lasted three and half hours, she said that the petitioners, Great Ogboru of the Democratic People's Party (DPP) and the party had in their petition stated that Uduaghan did not score the highest number of lawful votes.
The petitioners had also alleged in their petition that the first respondent (Uduaghan) was not duly elected, urging the tribunal to declare his certificate of return null and void.
They prayed the tribunal to direct the third respondent, the INEC, to issue the certificate of return to the first petitioner.
Unwana, however, said that counsel to the respondents in their counter affidavit had argued that in determining the grounds sought by the petitioner, the first consideration in determining the petition should be ''where lies the burden of proof.''
She said that the petitioners in their petition had said that there were no elections in some parts of Warri, Warri South, Warri South West, Ethiope West, Bomadi and Burutu local governments areas.
She however said that after close examinations of applications, affidavits and arguments, the ``burden of proof lies with he who alleges''.
She said that the petitioners had been able to prove that there were no elections in some parts of the six local governments areas and therefore nullified the election results from the local government areas.

Unwana said that upholding Uduaghan's election as the duly elected governor of Delta was based on the result from the lawful votes cast.