Court Sacks Imo APC Reps Member-Elect, Orders INEC To Issue Certificate Of Return To PDP Candidate

A Federal High Court in Owerri on Monday sacked the member-elect for Nkwerre/Nwangele/Njaba/Isu federal constituency of Imo State, Ugonna Ozurigbo.

Ozurigbo had, last Wednesday, resigned his position as the Deputy Speaker of the Imo State House of Assembly.

Justice P.A. Rigime, who delivered the judgment, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission to issue a Certificate of Return to Kingsley Echendu of the Peoples Democratic Party.

Neither PDP nor its candidate was a party to the suit.

The court said that Harrison Nwadike, who is the plaintiff, was the “rightful winner” of the All Progressives Congress primary election in the federal constituency.

Nwadike had taken his party, APC, and INEC to court over the submission of Ozurigbo’s name as the candidate of the party.

Nwadike, who prayed the court to declare him as the APC’s rightful candidate, contended that automatic tickets were unknown to the Constitution.

The court, in its judgment, agreed with the petitioner that automatic tickets were unknown to law.

The justice, who said that the candidacy of Ozurigbo was illegitimate, ordered INEC to issue the PDP candidate, Echendu, who came second in the general election, with a Certificate of Return as the rightful winner of the election.

The petitioner, who spoke to our Correspondent after the judgment was delivered, said that while he agreed with the court that he was the rightful winner of the APC primary election in the federal constituency, it was wrong for the court to have declared the PDP candidate the lawful winner of the general election.

He said he would go to court to challenge the aspect of the judgment which ordered INEC to issue a Certificate of Return to the PDP candidate.

But Stanley Imo, counsel to the PDP candidate who is the beneficiary of the court judgment, told our correspondent that the court was right to have declared his client the rightful winner of the election.

He said, “The law is very clear on this. Harrison Nwadike did not participate in all the stages of the election but my client did.

“Now, the court held that Ugonna Ozurigbo was not the rightful candidate of the APC (and) said that the second runner-up, who is my client that participated in all the stages of the elections, should be issued with the Certificate of Return.”

The PDP publicity secretary in the state, Damian Opara, urged INEC to waste no time in issuing its candidate the Certificate of Return as ordered by the court.

Opara, who spoke to our correspondent, said the judgment “has shown that impunity and illegality are bad. PDP did perfect primary elections and we are reaping the dividends.”

Efforts made by our Correspondent to reach Ozurigbo proved abortive, as he had yet to reply to the text messages sent to his mobile phone as of the time of filing this report.

Cull from Punch