The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Eseme Eyiboh’s lawsuit was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in Lagos for “lack of merit,” and Okpolupm Etteh of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was named as the representative of the Eket/ONNA/Esit Eket/Ibeno Federal Constituency of Akwa Ibom State.
The panel, which was chaired by Justice Jummai Hannatu C. Sankey, rendered its decision on Thursday.
As stated by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), Hon. Etteh was declared the winner of the House of Representatives election on February 25, 2023, for the Eket/ONNA/Esit Eket/Ibeno Federal Constituency. He had received 33,001 votes, while his opponent, Eyiboh, had received 16,909 votes. The presiding judge made this decision unanimously.
The court ordered Eyiboh to pay N300,000 to each of the defendants, claiming that Etteh’s credentials were faked based only on conjecture.
Remember how Eyiboh had petitioned the Tribunal to void Etteh’s eligibility and declare him the election winner? Eyiboh claimed in his plea that Etteh, the PDP candidate, was not eligible to compete for the election because of certificate forgery.
