In a significant ruling, the House of Representatives tribunal has annulled the election of Simon Atigwe, the member representing Igboeze North/Udenu Federal Constituency. The tribunal declared Dennis Nnamdi Agbo of the Labour Party (LP) as the rightful winner of the rerun election.
Initially, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Atigwe of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the winner of the rerun election held on February 3rd, 2024, with Atigwe securing 23,863 votes against Agbo's 23,226 votes.
However, Agbo, who had previously won the February 25th, 2023 election but was removed by the appellate court, challenged Atigwe’s victory in the tribunal. Agbo's legal team argued that the rerun election results were flawed due to incorrect computation and substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act.
On Wednesday, August 14th, the tribunal, led by Justice H.N. Kunaza, ruled in Agbo's favor. The panel found merit in Agbo's petition, declaring that 2,000 votes had been erroneously added to the PDP candidate's tally. The tribunal restored the original votes from the February 25th, 2023 election, which showed Agbo with 28,870 votes and the PDP candidate with 14,229 votes.
Justice Kunaza's panel concluded that Atigwe was not duly elected by valid votes, stating that Agbo won the election with 23,221 votes against Atigwe's 21,863 votes. Consequently, the tribunal ordered that the certificate of return issued to Atigwe be withdrawn and a new certificate be issued to Agbo.
No comments:
Post a Comment