The atmosphere in Enugu especially in the camp of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was that of excitement and jubilation as the Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Enugu on Friday affirmed the election of Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi as the governor of Enugu State.
The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Okey Ezea in the April 11, 2015 gubernatorial election in the state had filed a petition at the tribunal challenging Ugwuanyi’s election.
But the tribunal yesterday struck out his petition, saying that it was frivolous, against court processes, and, therefore, lacked merit.
As soon as the judgment was delivered, thousands of the governor’s supporters who had thronged the Enugu State High Court premises venue of the tribunal sitting went into wild jubilation while Ugwuanyi who arrived from Abuja hit the streets of the metropolis with the local government chairmen to celebrate and thank the people for the victory.
Delivering the judgment, which lasted over three hours, the Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Kwajafa Hildad, disclosed that the tribunal had earlier in the course of hearing the case struck out several paragraphs of Ezea’s petition for being imprecise, vague, and relating to party nomination which was a pre-election matter with some of them containing criminal allegations against people who were not made parties to the petition.
Justice Hildad noted that the petitioner’s allegation on over-voting and non-accreditation through the manipulation of the Card Readers Machine by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and other respondents were not sufficiently proved, pointing out that it was only the voters’ register that could determine the number of voters that participated in an election, saying that Ezea failed to provide the voters’ register to prove his case.
The chairman also disclosed that the petitioner brought only six witnesses from six polling units out of the 2,958 polling units in the state, saying that was not sufficient evidence that could support his case, and thus rendered it incompetent.
