The Court of Appeal in Enugu has upheld the ruling of an election tribunal that removed Simon Atigwe of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from his position as the member representing Igbo-Eze North/Udenu Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives.
In an earlier decision, the National Election Petition Tribunal in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, had sacked Mr. Atigwe in August and declared Dennis Agbo, the Labour Party (LP) candidate, as the rightful winner of a rerun election held in February 2024.
Dissatisfied with the tribunal’s ruling, Mr. Atigwe filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal in Enugu.
Delivering its judgment on Wednesday, the Court of Appeal affirmed that Mr. Atigwe was not duly elected in the rerun election and upheld the tribunal’s decision to declare Mr. Agbo of the LP as the legitimate winner.
Justice Joseph Eyo Ekanem, who led the three-member panel of the court, delivered the judgment.
Read Also:Â Ganduje Gets Resignation Ultimatum
Initially, Dennis Agbo had been declared the winner of the 25 February 2023 National Assembly election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
However, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Oby Ajih, contested the result at the Court of Appeal in Lagos, arguing that her party’s logo was missing on INEC’s EC8A form.
This led to the court’s November 2023 decision, which voided the original election and ordered a rerun.
In the rerun election held on 3 February 2024, Mr. Atigwe of the PDP was declared the winner, having polled 23,863 votes, narrowly defeating Mr. Agbo, who scored 23,226 votes.
Atigwe was subsequently sworn in.
However, Agbo challenged the result at the tribunal, citing irregularities in vote computation and non-compliance with the Electoral Act of 2022, which eventually led to his victory being reaffirmed by the Court of Appeal.
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaihFajBadmT29ufud2Z
