Ebonyi Election Tribunal Sacks Enugu Lawmaker

Gideon Arinze in Enugu 

The National Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Ebonyi State has sacked the House of Representatives member representing Igbo-Eze North/Udenu Federal Constituency in Enugu State, Simon Atigwe. 

In a ruling on Wednesday, the tribunal which was headed by Justice H. N. Kunaza also declared the Labour Party (LP) candidate, Dennis Agbo, winner of a rerun election which was held in February 2023. 

Recall that Agbo of the LP was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 25 February 2023 National Assembly Election in the constituency. However, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the election, Oby Ajih, challenged the outcome of the election at the Court of Appeal sitting in Lagos State.

Ajih argued at the court that the election did not follow the right process as the logo of her party was not in the INEC’s EC8A form for the exercise. In November 2023, the court set aside the election and ordered a re-run election in the constituency within 90 days.

In the re-run election held on 3 February this year, Atigwe of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was declared winner and was subsequently sworn in later the same month.

However, Agbo proceeded to the tribunal to challenge Atigwe’s declaration. He argued that the rerun election was marred irregularities including wrong computation of results and non-compliance to the Electoral Law 2022, among others.

Delivering judgement on yesterday, the tribunal held that Agbo’s petition had merit and consequently declared him the actual winner of the re-run election for the constituency.

The panel ruled that Atigwe was not duly elected by the valid votes cast as the petitioner (Agbo) won with 23,221 and PDP 21,863 votes. It ordered INEC to withdraw the certificate of return issued to Mr Atigwe and issue it to Agbo.