Appeal court upholds sack of PDP Reps member in South-east, declares LP candidate elected

The sacked lawmaker emerged as a winner in a rerun election in the constituency in February, which was ordered after the Court of Appeal in Lagos nullified the LP candidate's initial election in the 2023 poll.

The Court of Appeal in Enugu State has upheld the ruling of an election tribunal which sacked a House of Representatives member, Simon Atigwe.

Mr Atigwe of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) represents Igbo-Eze North/Udenu Federal Constituency.

The earlier tribunal judgement

In the earlier ruling in August, the National Election Petition Tribunal in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, sacked the federal lawmaker.

The tribunal, headed by Justice H. N. Kunaza, also declared Dennis Agbo, the Labour Party (LP) candidate, the winner of a rerun election held in February.

But Mr Atigwe filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal in Enugu State to challenge the ruling.

Court of Appeal ruling

Delivering judgment on Wednesday, the Court of Appeal in Enugu held that Mr Atigwe of the PDP was not duly elected in the rerun election.

The three-member panel of the court also affirmed the declaration of Mr Agbo of the LP, the rightful winner of the election.

The judgment was read out by the head of the panel, Justice Joseph Eyo Ekanem.

Background

Mr Agbo of the LP was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during 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 in Lagos State.

Mrs Ajih argued that the election did not follow the right process as the logo of her party was not on the INEC’s EC8A form for the exercise.

In November 2023, the court voided the election and ordered a re-run election in the constituency within 90 days.

In the re-run held on 3 February this year, Mr Atigwe of the PDP was declared winner of the exercise.

INEC said the PDP candidate polled 23,863 votes to defeat his closest rival, Mr Agbo of the Labour Party, who scored 23, 226 votes.

He was subsequently sworn in later the same month.

But Mr Agbo proceeded to the tribunal to challenge Mr Atigwe’s declaration.

Mr Agbo argued that the rerun election was marred by the wrong computation of results and substantial non-compliance to the Electoral Law 2022, among others.