The Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu has sacked the House of Representatives member representing Igboeze North/Udenu Federal constituency of Enugu State on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Simon Atigwe.
The Appeal Court decision upheld the earlier ruling of the Election Petition Tribunal which declared Dennis Ndubisi Agbo of the Labour Party as the rightful winner of the election.
The appellate Court held that Atigwe of the PDP was not duly elected, having failed to win a majority of the valid votes cast in the rerun election.
Simon Atigwe was declared the winner of the re-run election held on February 3rd, 2024 by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, a declaration the Labour Party candidate, Dennis Agbo challenged at the Tribunal. At the trial, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC had argued that the PDP candidate polled 23,863 votes to defeat the Labour Party candidate who according to the Commission garnered 23,226 votes, a difference of 637 votes.
But, the Courts disagreed, rather accepting that there was a computational error. 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.
In their judgement, the Appeal Panel declared invalid, null and void the 2,000 votes added to the PDP candidate and restored the votes of 25th February 2023 of 14,229 for the PDP and 18,870 for the LP candidate.
It also held that Atigwe Simon Chukwuemeka was not duly elected by the valid votes cast as the petitioner, Dennis Ndubisi Agbo of LP won with 23,221 and PDP’s Atigwe got 21,863 votes and as such, the Certificate of Return issued to Atigwe of the PDP should be withdrawn and issued to Agbo of the Labour Party.