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BREAKING: Okpebholo is duly elected, Ighodalo, PDP have no case – tribunal
Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is the Governor of Edo, the State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja, said on Wednesday, dismissing the petition of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Asue Ighodalo its candidate.
Justice Wilfred Kpochi, Chairman of the tribunal, who read the unanimous decision by a three-member panel, said it found no reason to nullify the outcome of the governorship contest that held in the state on September 21, 2024, dismissing as lacking in merit, a petition the PDP Ighodalo.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had declared that Okpebholo of the APC secured a total of 291, 667 votes to defeat his closet rivalry, Ighodalo of the PDP, who got a total of 247, 655 votes.
Dissatisfied with the result, the PDP and its candidate approached the tribunal, alleging that the election was not conducted in substantial compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022.
In the petition marked: EPT/ED/GOV/02/2024, it was alleged that governor Okpebholo did not secure the highest number of lawful votes that were cast at the election.
It was equally the contention of the petitioners that INEC failed to serialise and pre-record some of the sensitive materials that were deployed for the poll, a situation they said aided the rigging of the election in favour of the APC and its candidate.
Specifically, PDP and its candidate alleged that there was wrong computation of results in 765 polling units in the state, even as they produced 19 witnesses that testified and tendered exhibits before the tribunal.
Among exhibits the petitioners tendered before the tribunal, included a total of 153 Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVA, machines that were used in 133 polling units.
According to the petitioners, results from the polling units were manipulated at the collation centers, a situation they said resulted in over-voting, in Okpebholo’s favour.
However, in its judgement on Wednesday, the tribunal held that the petitioners failed to by way of credible evidence, establish why the outcome of the election should be set-aside.
It held that the onus of proving that governor Okpebholo was unduly returned by INEC, rested squarely on the petitioners.
The panel said it was trite law that a petitioner must succeed on the strength of his own case and not on the weakness of the defence.
It noted that contrary to section 16(1) of the First Schedule to the Electoral Act, the petitioners, in their reply, introduced new facts that were not contained in their substantive case.
The said new facts were rejected and struck out by the panel.
However, against the position of the Respondents, the panel admitted as valid, documents the petitioners tendered in evidence from the Bar.
It also noted that the petitioners were very detailed in chronicling the wards and polling units were the alleged infractions took place.
Nevertheless, the tribunal held that the PDP and its candidate merely dumped exhibits before it without demonstrating them through competent witnesses as required by the law.
It held that most of the witnesses that testified for the petitioners gave hearsay evidence, stressing that failure to produce polling unit agents, presiding officers or voters that participated in the election, to testify, proved fatal to the case of the petitioners.
The tribunal held that section 137 of the Electoral Act did not preclude the petitioners from producing necessary and competent witnesses to testify in support of their case.
It further dismissed contention of the petitioners that contrary to the provision of section 73(2) of the Electoral Act, INEC failed to pre-record most of the materials that were deployed for the election.
More so, the tribunal held that none of the BVAS machines tendered before it were switched on to demonstrate that the number of votes recorded in the disputed polling units, exceeded the total number of accredited voters.
“It is clear that items needed to prove over-voting are; Voters Register, BVAS machines and Form EC8A,” the tribunal held, noting that the petitioners merely tendered what they termed as BVAS screenshots in aid of their allegation.
It further held that the petitioners failed to prove their allegation that INEC did not substantially comply with provisions of the Electoral Act in the conduct of the election.
The tribunal held that even if it deducted the votes the petitioners alleged were unlawfully credited to the APC, governor Okpebholo would still remain the winner of the gubernatorial contest.
Meanwhile, reacting to the judgement, Ighodalo, through his team of lawyers, vowed to challenge it at the Court of Appeal.
Justice Muhammad Nuraddeen Bello of High Court sitting in Sokoto State has sentenced three men, including a foreign national, to death by hanging, after convicting them on charges bordering on terrorism and arms proliferation.
The convicts, Yusuf Muhammad (alias Sallau), a Nigerien; Jabbi Alhaji Yalle; and Kabiru Muhammad, were apprehended on 13th June, 2025, by the Department of State Services (DSS) Counter Terrorism Unit in connection with cross-border criminal activities bordering on arms trafficking and terrorism.
Bello, who found all three defendants guilty as charged and sentenced them to death by hanging, while also ordering the forfeiture of all monetary exhibits recovered from the convicts to the Federal Government, said: “The conviction is the latest in a series of successful prosecutions by the DSS in its sustained operations against terrorism and organised cross-border criminal networks across Nigeria.”
The sentencing is coming about two weeks after the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja sentenced each of the five suspects arrested on May 31, 2026, by the DSS for their involvement in the November 21, 2025, attack on St Mary’s Catholic School, Papiri, Niger State, to 25 years’ imprisonment.
Justice Binta Nyako, had handed down the judgment after the men, including two Nigeriens, pleaded guilty to all four terrorism-related charges, bordering on support for the commission of an act of terrorism, breaching both Section 16 of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022, and the Firearms Act, were pressed against them.
According to Count One, the men were accused of jointly conspiring to assist a terrorist by agreeing and intentionally playing various roles towards conveying 15 AK 103 rifles as well as about 1,434 rounds of 7.62mm live ammunition from the Diffa region, Republic of Niger, to one Malam Ahmad, a member of the Boko Haram terrorist group based in Borgu, Niger State, and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 26(1) of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.
Primate Elijah Ayodele, is on the verge of coughing out a whopping N10billion, if he fails to offer unrestrained apology to Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, former Governor of Kano State within the next 24 hours, and retract his claim that the former Minister of Defence is bidding his time to betray Peter Obi, to whom he is to contest the 2027 presidential election as a running mate.
Without doing so, the controversial cleric, should be ready for a major court battle with the vice-presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), the platform on which the pair is to contest the election.
In a letter indicating a legal action against Ayodele of the INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church over defamatory remarks, Kwankwaso, through Magaji Mato Ibrahim, SAN & Co., his lawyers demanded an immediate retraction and apology from the cleric over the allegations.
Details of the letter, dated June 11, and unveiled through the X platform of the legal team, was based on a viral video recorded during a live-streamed church service, where the preacher made allegations targeting Kwankwaso’s integrity as Peter Obi’s running mate under the NDC.
Quoting the cleric as stating: “KWANKWASO IS A FAKE TO OBI, KWANKWASO WILL BETRAY YOU. KWANKWASO HAS BEEN PAID TO BE VICE PRESIDENT TO OBI AMONG OTHER LIBELOUS COMMENTS WHILE PRETENDING TO BE A PREACHER,” the former governor said the comments were unprovoked, grossly unfounded, and carefully designed to create a rift within the ranks of the political party and its supporters.
Handing Ayodele a 24-hour ultimatum to publish a full and unequivocal retraction across all social media platforms and news outlets with the same prominence as the original video, they also demanded a written undertaking that he would cease and desist from making any further malicious statements against their client, warning that failure to comply, would lead to full legal actions.
The letter stated: “We shall claim substantial damages to the tune of Ten Billion Naira and cost of the action on a full indemnity basis amongst other reliefs.”
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Tuesday demanded the immediate end to the exportation of minerals from countries in Africa in their raw forms, which he said had led to massive exploitation of the continent.
The President, told member countries of the African Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG), a forum of Ministers in charge of Mining and Solid Minerals on the continent to speak with one voice to promote, collective interests, ensure value addition, and prevent the continent from becoming merely a source of raw materials for the rest of the world.
As the Grand Patron of the group, chaired by Dele Alake, Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, gave the charge while receiving a delegation of AMSG in the State House, Tinubu told the delegation that the group had a critical role to play in strengthening Africa’s bargaining power in the global mineral market and ensuring that the continent derives maximum value from its natural resources.
His words: “ What we should do is avoid bureaucracy and deceit; we must put an end to exploitation. The rest of the world won’t mind if your country is a cesspit of dams and rubbish and excavates your raw materials without giving value.
“It is our responsibility to collaborate and cooperate to ensure that these metals and minerals bring value to us, bring technology to us, and we can do it. It is how much each country will put into the research, development and refinery. I don’t see reasons we cannot demand centralisation of that conversation somewhere on the continent. So why not utilise that in our research and development and knowledge-based economy to enhance the quality of life and bring prosperity to our people.”
Emphasising that Africa possessed enormous mineral wealth that should be strategically harnessed to drive industrialisation, create jobs and accelerate economic transformation across the continent, the President, said the era of exporting raw minerals without local processing and beneficiation must give way to a new model that encourages investment in local industries, technology transfer and the development of value chains that retain wealth within Africa.
Alake, who had earlier expressed gratitude to the President for his exemplary leadership under the Renewed Hope Agenda, said the gesture had shown support for Nigeria’s mineral sector, especially in the local value-addition and economic diversification drive, where artisanal miners are empowered.
He told the President: “You encouraged us to look at the focal point of the establishment of this group, which is to ensure that the African natural resources, especially with regards to minerals, critical matters, are localised, the beneficiation coming directly to Africans generally.
“You charged us that we should set our sails very high and ensure that local value addition is a pivot around which all the objectives of this organisation should revolve.
“So, sir, we have gone implemented your charge and we are quitted that today local value addition is reverberating all over Africa.”
He added that some member countries have gone ahead to ban the export of raw minerals.
He explained members of the body were in Abuja for the Fifth edition of the African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit (AFNIS 2026), to push for a new continental approach to resource management and industrial development.
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