The lawsuit brought by Chief Uche Nnaji, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for governor in the general election of 2023 in Enugu State, disputing the win of Dr. Peter Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was dismissed by the Enugu Division of the Court of Appeal.
Justice J.O.K. Oyewole gave the three-person panel of the appellate court’s verdict on Tuesday.
Nnaji had turned to the appellate court to seek redress after his plea was initially denied by the Justice K.M. Akano-led Enugu State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal on June 20, 2023.
He had argued that Mbah, who was accused of giving a falsified certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), was not legally eligible to run for governor at the time of the election.
In addition, the APC candidate, who received 14,575 votes overall compared to Dr. Peter Mbah’s 160,895 votes and finished a distant fourth in the election, claimed that Governor Mbah was not legitimately elected by the majority of the lawful votes cast.
The candidates for the Labour Party (LP), Hon. Chijioke Edeoga, and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Mr. Frank Nweke Jr., joined as respondents as well. According to the appellant, these candidates were ineligible to run for office because they allegedly broke the asset declaration law.
Therefore, he had requested that Mbah, Edeoga, and Nweke be declared ineligible and that the Tribunal declare him the winner or compel INEC to hold a runoff election between him and the other surviving candidates.
Justice M.K. Akano, Chairman of the Tribunal, however, stated in his ruling on the petition with the filing number EPT/EN/GOV/05/23 that the lawsuit had not been filed in accordance with the Electoral Act’s rules and could not be heard as a result of paragraph 18(3)(4) of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act, 2022.
As a result, Nnaji petitioned the Court of Appeal to send the dismissed petition back to the Tribunal so that the case might be heard and decided.
However, on Tuesday, at the appeal’s resumed hearing, the Court of Appeal affirmed the Tribunal’s ruling and rejected the lawsuit in accordance with it. The appeal is marked CA/E/E/EP/GOV/EN/01/2023.
The appellate court granted Nnaji and the APC the same sum of N250,000 apiece.