Court of Appeal Removes PDP’s Simon Atigwe, Declares Labour Party’s Dennis Agbo as Winner

 

The Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu has annulled the election of Simon Atigwe, the House of Representatives member representing the Igboeze North/Udenu Federal constituency of Enugu State, under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

In its ruling, the appellate court upheld the earlier decision of the Election Petition Tribunal, which had declared Dennis Ndubisi Agbo of the Labour Party (LP) as the rightful winner of the election.

The court found that Atigwe did not secure a majority of the valid votes cast during the rerun election. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had previously declared Atigwe the winner of the rerun election held on February 3, 2024, stating that he received 23,863 votes against Agbo's 23,226 votes, a margin of 637 votes. However, this declaration was contested by Agbo at the tribunal.

During the tribunal proceedings, it was revealed that there had been a computational error regarding the vote tally. The Appeal Court ultimately deemed the 2,000 votes initially added to Atigwe's total as invalid, thereby restoring the original results from the February 25, 2023, election, which indicated 14,229 votes for Atigwe and 18,870 votes for Agbo.

The appellate court ruled that Atigwe was not duly elected, as the petitioner, Agbo, had actually won with a total of 23,221 votes compared to Atigwe's 21,863 votes. Consequently, the court ordered the withdrawal of the Certificate of Return issued to Atigwe, directing that it be reissued to Agbo of the Labour Party.