Justice Ekwo held that the plaintiff, in the case marked, FHC/ABJ/CS/648/201, George Moghalu (an APC aspirant for the election), succeeded in proving that the APC did not conduct a valid primary election from which Andy Uba claimed to have emerged as the party’s candidate.
By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
Even if the purported candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the November 6, 2021 Anambra State governorship election, Senator Andy Uba, had been declared winner, he wouldn’t still have been able to govern.
Reason?
The Supreme Court on Tuesday voided his participation in the election as the APC candidate.
A five-member panel of the apex court, held in a judgment on Tuesday, that the APC breached its own guidelines for the conduct of primaries and thus, failed to conduct valid primary from which Uba emerged as the party’s candidate in the Anambra governorship election.
The Supreme Court affirmed the February 23, 2022 judgment of the Court of Appeal, which upheld the December 20, 2021 judgment by Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
The apex court proceeded to dismiss the appeals filed by Andy Uba and the APC – marked: SC/CV/240/2022 and SC/CV/241/2022.
In the December 20, 2021 judgment, Justice Ekwo held among others that Uba was never a candidate in the election held on November 6, 2021 having emerged from an illegally conducted primary election held by the APC.
Justice Ekwo held that the plaintiff, in the case marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/648/201, George Moghalu (an APC aspirant for the election) succeeded in proving that the APC did not conduct a valid primary election from which Andy Uba claimed to have emerged as the party’s candidate.
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Ironically, the Senator Andy Uba Campaign Organisation had rejected the result of the election that returned All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate Prof. Charles Soludo.
A statement in Abuja on November 11, 2021 by his campaign organisation’s spokesperson, Ambassador Jerry Ugokwe, said the outcome of the election was a charade and did not reflect the wishes of Anambra people.
Ugokwe said: “Our popular candidate, Senator Andy Uba, is a victim of widespread electoral fraud and manipulation by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in cohorts with the Willie Obiano regime and the security forces deployed to oversee the election.
“The elections were characterised by widespread irregularities, intimidation and voter suppression to clear the path for the inglorious victory of APGA in the polls.”
The campaign organisation argued that “it is inconceivable that our candidate, who polled over 200,000 votes in the APC primary election, would be allocated slightly above 43,000 votes by INEC”.
But the courts held that the 200,000 votes purportedly scored at the primaries were phantom votes.
