By Chibuike Onyeukwu
The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Tuesday upheld the ruling of the
Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which dismissed the petitions
filed against the victory of Gov. Emeka Ihedioha of Imo State.
The Court Tuesday dismissed the petition filed against Ihedioha by three
political parties – Action Alliance (AA), All Progressives Congress
(APC) and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
The parties
alongside their governorship candidates, Mr Uche Nwosu, Sen. Hope
Uzodinma and Sen. Ifeanyi Ararume had appealed to the Court to nullify
the election of Ihedioha on the ground that he was unlawfully declared
as the governor of the state by the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC).
Delivering judgment, the Court of Appeal
dismissed the appeal of the candidate of the AA Party, Nwosu, for
incompetence and awarded the N500,000 cost awarded against him.
In a unanimous decision, the five member panel, also struck out the
petition of APC candidate Uzodinma with a fine of N500,000 against him.
It said, "the tribunal cannot be faulted for striking out the petition
of the petitioner..therefore the appeal is lacking in merit and it is
hereby dismissed and a N500,000 cost awarded against him".
The Court described as an "absurdity", for Uzodinma who came 4th in an election to ask to be declared winner.
On Araraume's appeal, the Court held that his proof of evidence is
lame, moreso that the opinion of the trial Tribunal was impeccable in
dissmissing his petition. It also averred that documents were not
unbundled, but were dumped at the Tribunal and as such the burden of
proof was not discharged by the petitioner, just like his appeal.
Consequently the court, dismissing his appeal, said, " the appeal is a
failure and dismissed accordingly, and a cost of N500,000 awarded
against him."
The Court held that the three appeals challenging
the declaration of Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), lacked
merit.
The appellants had challenged the emergence of the PDP
candidate as winner of the March, 9 governorship election on the grounds
that the election was marred by irregularities.
The Tribunal had
held that candidate of the Action Alliance, AA, Uche Nwosu, Ifeanyi
Ararume of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, and Uzodinma of
the All Progressives Congress, APC, failed to establish their petitions
against governor Ihedioha.
The Tribunal had also in their
judgement unanimously held that Sen. Uzodinma of the APC was unable to
prove his allegation that wrongful collation of results by INEC led to
Ihedioha’s emergence as winner of the governorship election.
Recall that the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Emeka Ihedioha,
emerged the Imo State governor-elect, polling 273,404 votes to defeat 69
other candidates including his closest rival, Uche Nwosu of Action
Alliance who scored 190,364 votes.
The All Progressives Grand
Alliance candidate, Senator Ifeanyi Ararume, polled 114,676 followed by
the All Progressives Congress candidate, Senator Hope Uzodimma, who
scored 96,458 votes.
Meanwhile, the Court of Appeal had, upheld
the disqualification of the Candidate of Action Alliance, Uche Nwosu on
the grounds that he was not qualified to contest the election because he
had double nomination from two political parties.
Also the
Supreme Court, in an appeal brought to it by Action Alliance against its
candidate Uche Nwosu, accepted the withdrawal of the party from the
suit filed against Governor Ihedioha by Uche Nwosu.
Chibuike Onyeukwu is the Chief Press Secretary to Imo State Governor Emeka Ihedioha
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