The Supreme Court today Thursday affirmed the election of Senator Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as duly elected Governor of Edo State, thus, upholding the earlier verdicts of the Court of Appeal and the Governorship Election Tribunal.
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 of Saturday, September 21.
However, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP’s Asue Ighodalo had contested the results, claiming the election was marred by massive irregularities.
Ruling on the case today, Nigeria’s apex court had the appeal by Ighodalo dismissed for lacking in merit.
In a unanimous decision by the five-man panel, led by Justice Mohammed Garba Lawal, the court held that the appellants could not establish their claims of election non-compliance and unlawful votes to conclude that APC’s Monday Okpebholo was not duly elected.
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.
INEC’s Returning Officer for the poll, Professor Faruk Kuta, who announced the results, said Okpebholo polled 291,667 votes to defeat Ighodalo of PDP, who got 247,274 votes.
Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP) came a distant third in the race with 22,763 votes.
Fourteen other candidates contested the seat.
