The petition Patrick Tonye-Cole, a candidate for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, filed to challenge the election of Governor Siminalayi Fubara in the March 18 gubernatorial election has been dismissed by the Rivers State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which is based in Abuja.
The Peoples Democratic Party’s Fubara was proclaimed the victor of the Rivers State governorship election on March 18 by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
The three-person tribunal panel dismissed Tonye-Cole’s lawsuit on Monday because the APC’s national leadership withdrew from the case against Fubara, according to its ruling.
The Labour Party’s Beatrice Itubo’s suit challenging the election of Fubara as governor of Rivers State was also rejected by the judiciary.
The tribunal also denied the plea submitted by Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs, the Accord Party’s candidate for governor.
The Alliance Peoples Movement’s (APM) Innocent Ekwu’s petition for governor was similarly denied by the court for lack of merit, and the petitioner was fined N500,000.
The petitioners had come before the tribunal to contest INEC’s declaration of Fubara’s victory.
The petitioners’ lawsuits were ultimately dismissed by the tribunal’s three-member panel, which had been presided over by Justice Cletus Emifonye, after finding that they lacked the necessary evidence to support their claims.