A clearer picture of who would be crowned the eventual winner of the December 4th, 2020 bye- election for Okigwe Zone Senate Election will depend on who the Court announces.
This is according to what the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, revealed while speaking on the election that failed to produce a candidate as winner but had the APC named as winning party.
In the first official statement credited to the INEC after the polls, Festus Okoye, a National Commissioner and Head; Information and Voter Education in an interview disclosed that no Court named a candidate as winner of the APC primaries and no such directed the electoral body to remove APC logo and name from the ballot paper.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Friday, opened up on the Imo North Senatorial bye election, giving reasons why it declared the All Progressive Congress, APC, winner of the election, but did not return any candidate.
Trumpeta can vividly say that court orders and judgments have ridiculed the contest to find a replacement for late Senator Ben Uwajumogu. Apart from the Appeal Court which asked for the removal of Senator Ifeanyi Araraume name a Federal High Court in Abuja ruled that Frank Ibezim wasn’t qualified to run for the position.
Okoye said,” It is important to put the issues in context when analyzing the challenge in Imo North Senatorial bye election.
“After the APC party primaries, the party submitted the name of Francis Chukwuma Ibezim, to INEC as the candidate of the political party, and the Commission in accordance with the Electoral Act, section 31 of the Electoral Act, published the name of Ibezim as the candidate of the APC.
“Thereafter one lady, Uchenna Uba went to the Federal High Court, Owerri and got an Order to the effect that Ibezim was not the candidate of APC, and the Court made an Order that the person who won the party primaries was Senator Ifeanyi Araraume.
“And we were ordered to replace the name of Ibezim with that of Araraume, and INEC complied with that Order.
Okoye added that “on the eve of the election, INEC was served with a Court Order from the Court of Appeal sitting in Owerri, to the effect that the Federal High Court, Owerri that gave the order that Araraume should be placed on the list of candidates did not have requisite jurisdiction to entertain the matter, and the case was accordingly struck out which made the Commission to revert to status quo, to which made the Commission to return the name of Ibezim
He continued” On the eve of the election, the Commission was also served with another Court Order from the Federal High Court in Abuja, in a suit that was instituted by one Tony Elebeke, which ordered that the said Ibezim was not eligible to be nominated and was not qualified to contest the election.
“And having been served with that particular Order, we now removed the name of Ibezim as the candidate of the party” he said.
