The Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu has sacked Hon. Simon Atigwe of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, from the House of Representatives for Igbo-Eze North/Udenu Federal Constituency, in the state.
The court also upheld the decision of the Election Petition Tribunal that affirmed Hon. Dennis Nnamdi Agbo of the Labour Party, LP, as the winner of the re-run election, held on February 3, 2024.
The three-member panel of the Appellate court, led by Justice H N Kunaza, In a unanimous judgment on Wednesday, dismissed Atigwe’s appeal for lacking in merit.
The appeal court held 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 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.
Justice Kunaza nullified 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the petitioner won with 23,221 and PDP 21,863 votes and as such, the certificate of return issued to Atigwe should be withdrawn and issued to Agbo.