On Wednesday, the Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu, upheld the ruling of the House of Representatives tribunal that sacked Hon. Simon Atigwe, the member representing Igboeze North/Udenu federal constituency.
The appellate court rather returned the candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Hon Dennis Nnamdi Agbo who was declared winner in the February 25th 2023 National Assembly election and sworn in but was sacked for a re-run election that took place on February 3rd 2024.
The Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Atigwe, was subsequently sworn in as the winner of the 2024 election, but Agbo’s petition to the second election tribunal filed against Atigwe was on Wednesday, consolidated by the Appeal Court and sent Atigwe packing from the House of Representatives.
The Appeal Court in delivering the judgement said that Atigwe of the PDP wasn’t duly elected by the valid votes cast in the rerun election and declared Dennis Agbo of the Labour Party as the rightful winner of the election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had declared that the PDP’s candidate polled a total of 23,863 votes to defeat the Labour Party candidate who it said scored 23,226 votes.
Agbo of the LP who had earlier won the February 25th, 2023 election but was sacked by the appellate court proceeded to the tribunal to challenge Atigwe’s declaration, arguing that the election was marred by wrong computation of result, substantial non-compliance to the electoral act among others.
In their ruling on Wednesday, the Tribunal headed by Justice H N Kunaza said that the petition had merit and declared Hon. Dennis Nnamdi Agbo the actual winner of Igbo Eze North/ Udenu Federal constituency.
Justice Kunaza’s panel declared invalid, null and void the 2000 votes added to the PDP candidate and restored the votes of 25th February 2023 of 14,229 for the PDP and 28,870 for the LP candidate, Rt Hon Dennis Agbo.
It also held that Atigwe Simon Chukwuemeka of the PDP was not duly elected by the valid votes cast as the petitioner won with 23,221 and PDP 21,863 votes and as such, the certificate of return issued to Atigwe should be withdrawn and issued to Hon Agbo.
