The Court of Appeal, Enugu Division on Tuesday affirmed the election of Senator Ike Ekweremadu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 23 Senatorial election for Enugu West zone.
In a unanimous judgment delivered by the panel chaired by Justice I.M. Salawu, the court dismissed the appeal filed by Mrs Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for lacking in merit.
Ifeanyi Ubah
The court held that the appellants failed to prove allegations of non-compliance to the Electoral Act and as such were not entitled to the reliefs sought.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the National and State Assembly Elections Petitions Tribunal that sat in Enugu had on September 9, upheld the election of Ekweremadu.
Dissatisfied with the judgment of the trial court, Ibekaku-Nwagwu approached the appellate court with sundry allegations that bother on non-compliance to the Electoral Act.
The appellant alleged incidences of over voting as well as announcement of result by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) while collation was still ongoing.
However, the appellate court, while upholding the decision of the trial court held that the appeal anchored on the refusal of the tribunal to nullify the elections in the 824 polling units of the zone failed woefully.
The court said that the winner of the election cannot have his election nullified on the allegations that the result sheet of the election was not dated.
The court awarded N50, 000 costs against the appellants in favour of each of the respondents which include the PDP, INEC and Ekweremadu.
Meanwhile, Ibekaku-Nwagwu has thanked her supporters for their loyalty and faith while her attempt to represent them at the Red Chambers lasted.
Reacting to the judgment, the presidential aide, said that she had accepted the verdict of the court in good fate.
“In every situation we give thanks to the Almighty God and as law abiding citizens and good sportsmen, we have accepted the verdict of the Appeal Court.
“We will all go back to the trenches because the senatorial seat of Enugu West will come to the APC in 2023,” she said.
Ibekaku-Nwagwu said that she would, henceforth, dedicate her time to assisting the Attorney General of the Federation in his ongoing judicial reforms to ensure that President Muhammadu Buhari succeeded.
“With my recent appointment as the Special Assistant to the President on Justice Reform and International Relation, my preoccupation now is to help President Muhammadu Buhari to succeed.
“What Mr President needs now is not distraction but necessary support that would make him succeed,” Ibekaku-Nwagwu said.
Also on Tuesday, the Court of Appeal, Enugu Division affirmed the election of Senator Ifeanyi Ubah of Young Progressive Party (YPP) as Senator representing Anambra South.
Justice I.M. Salawu in two separate judgments dismissed the appeals filed by Chief Chris Ubah of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Sen. Andy Ubah of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the National and State Houses of Assembly Elections Petitions Tribunal in Awka had in its judgment on Sept. 9, affirmed Ifeanyi as duly elected.
However, the Ubah brothers approached the appellate court on grounds of alleged miscarriage of justice by the tribunal.
Chris in his appeal alleged that the tribunal failed to consider all the exhibits tendered before it while arriving at the judgment.
He urged the court to address the alleged issue of improper accreditation which the trial court allegedly glossed over.
The PDP candidate told the court that the three major documents upon which the election result was anchored such as the card reader, voters register and Form EC8A1 had different figures.
Andy on his part urged the appellate court to nullify the election for alleged corrupt practices by Ifeanyi.
He alleged that the YPP candidate not only engaged in inducement of voters but also assaulted and coerced the INEC to announce the result of the election.
In the judgment, the court dismissed the submissions of Chris’ witnesses as hearsay evidence.
It also held that the witnesses presented at the trial court by Andy did not discharge their duties.
The court, therefore, aligned itself with the judgments of the trial court and dismissed the appeals as unmeritorious.
The court directed Chris to pay a cost of N50, 000 each to the 1st to 10th respondents and N200, 000 to the 11th respondent.
Andy was directed to pay a cost of N400, 000 to each of the two sets of respondents.
.NAN