Tribunal annuls elections of 3 PDP lawmakers

Sylvanus Eze, Awka - 27.02.2008

This is not the best of time for Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Anambra State chapter as her members elected in to the state House of Assembly in April 2007, have had their elections and subsequent swearing in declared null and void by the election petition tribunal sitting in Awka and headed by Justice Ibrahim Bako.

On Tuesday, the Justice Ibrahim Bako led tribunal upheld the petitions respectively filed by the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) candidate and Ndibe Frank of the Action Congress (AC), challenging the election of Simeon Ohajiriuka of PDP, as representative of Ihiala II constituency, as well as the election of Ozo Ughanmadu, PDP as Awka South II Constituency member in the House.

In the judgment which was delivered amid heavy security presence and horde of supporters drawn from the different political camp, the tribunal, while upholding the petition filed by the ANPP candidate nullified the election of Simeon Ohajiriuka for lack of credibility, it however dismissed the AC candidate petition due to the fact that the petitioner could not prove that there was no election in Ihiala II constituency on that day.

Similarly, the tribunal same day declared as void the election of Ozo Ughanmadu of PDP as representative of Awka South II constituency and attributed its reason for delivering the judgment in favour of the AC candidate, Frank Ndibe to fraudulent acts which it said characterised the election.

Again the tribunal had, last week, further depleted the PDP led House by declaring as null and void the election of Njideka Ezeigwe, the majority leader of the House and representative one of the constituencies in Ogbaru.

However, as the state chairman of AC, Chief Ndubuisi Nwobu, had welcomed these judgments and gave commendation to the tribunal over what he (Nwobu) claimed was the tribunals ability to show by their judgments that the 2007 elections were flawed, all the House members whose election were declare void by the tribunal have indicated that they are appealing against the judgments.