Ikenga Ugochinyere, a member of the House of Representatives who was elected under the banner of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has been sacked from office by the Imo State National and State House of Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal.
A three-member tribunal panel that met in Nasarawa State on Sunday came to the unanimous conclusion that Ugochinyere had not been duly nominated by the PDP to run in the Ideato North/South Federal Constituency election that took place on February 25.
As a result, it mandated that a supplementary election be held in the constituency within 90 days by the Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC.
The tribunal expressly ordered the electoral board to conduct the additional vote in 55 polling places where elections were not held on February 25 in its lead judgment, which was delivered by its chairman, Justice Anthony Olotu Akpovi.
It was decided that the PDP and its candidate should not be allowed to participate in the special election.
The decision was made in response to a petition that candidate for the All Progressives Congress, Mr. Abazu Chika Benson, filed with the tribunal.
In the petition with the file number EPT/IM/HR/10/2023, INEC, Ugochinyere, the PDP, and Labour Party candidate Obi Paschal Chigozie and his group, the LP, were listed as the first through fifth respondents.
You may recall that INEC had tallied up 13, 026 votes and pronounced PDP candidate Ugochinyere the victor of the poll.
The petitioner, who was supported by the APC, finished third with a total of 2, 368 votes, falling behind the LP candidate Chigozie, who received 5,696 votes.
However, the APC candidate filed a petition claiming that Ugochinyere was unable to compete in the House of Representatives race because he was unhappy with the results of the election.
The petitioner claimed, among other reasons, that every vote given to the PDP candidate was a waste of a vote.
He testified before the tribunal that the PDP held its primary election outside of the constituency, in violation of an unambiguous provision of the Electoral Act.
The primary election the PDP held on May 25, 2022, which produced Ugochinyere as its candidate, was held at Aladinma Shopping Mall, a location outside Ideato North/South Federal Constituency, according to documentary and oral evidence that was presented to the tribunal, the tribunal emphasized in its ruling.
The tribunal determined that the PDP primary election was unlawful based on the clause in section 84(5)(c) of the Electoral Act 2022.
It was decided that an invalid primary election could not have produced a legitimate candidate.
The 3rd respondent’s (PDP) sponsorship of the 2nd respondent was declared unconstitutional by Justice Akpovi because it disregarded a sacred clause of the Electoral Act.
The tribunal argued that section 29 (1) of the Electoral Act must be followed for a primary election to be legitimate.
It was decided that because Ugochinyere was not legitimately nominated, he was ineligible at the time of the House of Representatives election.
Furthermore, the tribunal ruled that the LP candidate, Chigozie, could only be proclaimed the victor of the seat due to the margin of lead principle because INEC conceded that it was unable to conduct the election at 55 polling places in the constituency due to the actions of unidentified gunmen.
Therefore, it instructed INEC to conduct additional elections with participation from all parties besides the PDP in the remaining voting units.
Justices Usman Kudu and Ibrahim Mohammed were the other panelists who agreed with the lead decision. The Sunday Vanguard