Ideato North/South Fed. Const: Why Court Sacked Ikenga Ugochinyere, Ordered Supplementary Election
The member representing Ideato North/South Federal Constituency of Imo State, Ikenga Ugochinyere, has been sacked by the National and State House of Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal.
The three-member panel of the tribunal in a unanimous judgment delivered by their chairman, Justice Anthony Olotu Akpovi, in Nasarawa State on Sunday, ruled that the nomination of Ugochinyere of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the February 25, 2023 election, was not valid as it did not conduct a proper primary election.
“Failure of the 3rd respondent (PDP) to abide by the sacrosanct provision of the Electoral Act invalidated its sponsorship of the 2nd respondent,” Justice Akpovi held.
Consequently, it ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to conduct a supplementary election in 55 polling units “where elections did not hold” within 90 days.
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It held that the PDP and its candidate should be excluded from the supplementary election.
The judgement followed a petition filed by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Mr. Abazu Chika Benson.
Recall that INEC had declared the PDP candidate, Ugochinyere, as winner of the election with a total of 13, 026 votes, Labour Party’s candidate polled 5,696 votes, while the petitioner polled 2, 368 votes.
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