Bayelsa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja has upheld the election of Senator Duoye Diri as Bayelsa State Governor in November 19, 2019 poll.
A three-man panel held that the petition filed against Diri’s victory by Owei Woniwei of the Alliance for Democracy is incompetent and lacks merit.
The tribunal also dismissed the United Peoples Congress petition challenging Diri’s election.
Justice S.M. Owoduni who read the lead judgment of the tribunal held that the petitioners failed to prove the allegation that Diri’s deputy, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, forged his declaration of age and National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) discharge certificate.
Diri, who came second in the last year’s governorship election in the state, was declared the elected governor of the state after Supreme Court disqualified the All Progressives Congress’s candidate David Lyon, who earlier emerged the winner of the poll.
Lyon was sacked because his running mate was found culpable of discrepancies in his school certificates.
The ruling comes a month after the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal filed by a former aspirant of the Bayelsa governorship election under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Timi Alaibe, challenging the candidacy of Senator Diri in the November 2019 election.
