The National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal that sat in Asaba today September 13, 2023, has declared the February 25 election of Delta central senatorial district inconclusive.

The three-member Tribunal led by Justice W.I. Kpochi instructed a re-run in 48 units across four out of eight local government areas in the district.

The ruling further demanded the Certificate of Return initially issued to Senator Ede Dafinone of the All Progressives Congress (APC) by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to be set aside until after the outcome of the re-run.

Ighoyota Amori, the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the said election, took the case to the tribunal, seeking to be declared as winner or in the alternative, the court should order a re-run in the contentious four council areas.

The tribunal also declared the election of Senator Joel Onowakpo (APC) for Delta South inconclusive, directing INEC to conduct a supplementary election for Warri South Local Government Area of the district within 90 days last week.

While it upheld the election of Benedict Etanabene of the Labour Party as a member representing the Okpe/Sapele/Uvwie Federal Constituency.

Justice Kpochi in validating the election of Benedict, dismissed the petition filed by the candidate of the PDP, Evelyn Oboro for lack of merit.

Evelyn Oboro was a former Member of the House and former Commissioner for Water Resources in Delta State.

She sought the disqualification of Etanabene on the ground that he did not duly resign his teaching position from the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Effurun before running for the political seat.

INEC had declared Etanabene who polled 37,107 votes as duly the elected candidate while Oboro scored 29,917 in the election.