Imo State National and State House of Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal has thrown out the petition of Sen. Osita Izunazo against Sen. Hope Uzodinma over Imo west Senatorial seat, dismissing it as incompetent and defective.
In a unanimous judgment by the three man tribunal read by Justice Mohammed, the tribunal held that the petitioner, Izunazo, abandoned his petition by failing to pay the appropriate application fees for pre-hearing.
The tribunal ruled that paragraph 34, sec. 4 of the first schedule to the electoral act made it clear that fees to be paid shall be the same as those payable for proceedings at the federal high court, noting that the second schedule, item 7 & 13 make it mandatory for payment for any paper filed at the tribunal.
The tribunal therefore declared that for failing to pay the appropriate fees as required by law, the petitioner had abandoned his petition and that there was consequently no petition before the tribunal.
Izunzo had filed a petition urging the tribunal to declare him winner of Imo west Senatorial election, which Uzodinma won, claiming that election held in only 9 out of 12 L.G.A’s that make up Imo west and that he won in the 9.
But also inthe same petition, Izunazo claimed that elections in all the LGA’s were marred by irregularities including in the 9 LGA’s, he claimed to have won. But in the course of the proceeding of the tribunal, INEC brought evidence to show that election held in the 12 LGA’s of Imo West.
In the ruling yesterday in Owerri, the judges recalled that Izunazo’s lawyers were the same lawyers who defended Governor Rochas Okorocha In the petition brought against him by Hon. Emeka Ihedioha and that they, the lawyers, relied on the non-payment of the application fees to argue against Ihedioha’s application and wondered why they failed to pay the same fees as required by law, which they pointed out in the governorship election Tribunal matter
