Former Cross River State governor, Ben Ayade has lost his bid to upturn the election of Mr. Jarigbe Jarigbe as the Senator representing Cross River North. An Appeal Court sitting in Lagos Saturday dismissed the petition filed by Ayade and the All Progressives Congress.
In their five-hour judgement, Justice M. A. Sambo, chairman of the tribunal, upheld the judgement of the Cross River National Assembly election petitions tribunal sitting in Calabar, which ruled that Mr. Jarigbe of the Peoples Democratic Party was duly elected. The Appeal Court panel stated that Ayade and the APC failed to prove their case.
Mr Sambo added that no evidence tendered before the court proved that the elections were marred with malpractices. The court, therefore, awarded N500,000 against the former governor in favour of the incumbent senator.
Mr Ayade, a former governor who was in the Senate between 2011 and 2015, lost the February election to the incumbent senator, Mr Jarigbe.
Mr Ayade scored 56,595 votes against Mr Jarigbe, who scored 76,145 votes.
