By Zika Bobby

Governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Delta State, Kenneth Gbagi has said for Nigeria and especially Delta State to make progress, an atmosphere of renewed honesty and purposeful character must reign and be allowed to exist.

“This is why my party, the SDP, in Delta State, and I as candidate have decided to challenge the March 18 2023 election at the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal  with a view to voiding the declaration of the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party,  Mr. Sheriff Oborevwori, who the electoral umpire, INEC declared as winner,” he said in a statement.

“The election was marred with malpractice, vote-buying, food being cooked for people, wrappers being bought for them, all of which are part of what the Electoral Act spelt out to be a crime. My petition has encompassed all of that and I believe strongly that the judiciary would do what they ought to do. If you declare a result that has nothing to do with the Bimodal Voters Verification System (BVAS), the result stands cancelled. The fact will speak for itself. Maybe people thought that it is business as usual, we did not go into the election for a joke, we meant what we wanted to do, and we planned for it,” he said.

He said in the petition, “we are contending that as at the time of the election, Oborevwori was not qualified to run for the office of governor and also did not meet the requirement to be elected and returned by majority of lawful votes.”

Joined in the suit as co-defendants are INEC, PDP, All Progressives Congress (APC), its governorship candidate, Ovie Omo-Agege, and other governorship candidates in the state and their parties.

Gbagi is contending that aside Oborevwori, other candidates, including Omo-Agege and Great Ogboru of All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, and Ken Pela of the Labour Party, LP, were also not qualified to run for the office of governor in the state.

In his argument against Oborevwori declaration as governor-elect by INEC, Gbagi contended that Oborebwori in an attempt to meet the constitutional requirements of eligibility for the 2023 governorship election, presented a fake declaration of age/affidavit in support of personal particulars in Form C.F.001.

“We averred that Oborevwori’s Statutory Declaration of age/affidavit deposed to in 2022 contains a different age contrary to what African Senior School Certificate, WASSC, dated June 1999 with Certificate Number 384793. We maintain that Oborevwori lied under oath that he does not have Primary School Certificate, Secondary School Certificate, and his university degree, whereas, in 2018, he exhibited the same with his Form C.F.001.”

We also argued that a suit challenging the qualification of Oborevwori to contest the election was filed and decided at the Federal High Court, Asaba based on forged credentials, contrary to the principle laid down by the supreme court in Saleh v. Abah, (2017) 12 (NWLR) PT. 1578 AT P. 100.”

Gbagi is also asking the tribunal to declare him as the only qualified candidate for the election, nullify the certificate of return issued by INEC to Oborevwori and order INEC to issue a fresh certificate of return to him as winner of the election.