COURT DISQUALIFIES GOV. UMAHI AND BROTHER FROM CONTESTING SENATORIAL ELECTIONS.
Written by AIGBOKHAEBHO OKHUELEIGBE on July 23, 2022
The Federal High Court sitting in Abakiliki, Ebonyi State, has disqualified governor David Umahi and his younger brother, Chief Austin Umahi, from contesting as candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Ebonyi South senatorial district in the 2023 elections.
Umahi‘s younger brother, Chief Austin Umahi, had emerged as the winner of the first primary election conducted by the APC.
But after losing at the APC presidential primary election, the Ebonyi State chapter of the party canceled the earlier primary and rescheduled another one, where the governor picked the ticket.
The rescheduled Ebonyi South APC Senatorial primary election was later held at the Afikpo North Local Government Council, with Umahi clinching the party’s senatorial ticket after other contestants, including his younger brother, stepped down for him.
In a suit filed by the governor asking the court to compel INEC to publish his name as the APC Senatorial Candidate for Ebonyi South, the Judge, Justice Fatun Riman, cited section 115 of the Electoral Act, which forbids a person from standing two different primary elections in the same year.
The judge asserted that by the new electoral Act, persons found to participate in two separate party primary elections at the same time risk a two-year jail term.
The Judge declared that the authentic Senatorial Candidate of the APC for Ebonyi South is Mrs. Ann Agom-Eze, since the initial winner, Austin Umahi, withdrew from the race.
Meanwhile, the Governor in a swift response alleged that Agom-Eze connived with her friend who is a member of the APC National Working Committee to submit forged documents purported to be coming from the Party’s National headquarters.
The statement read in part;
That Ann Agom Eze and her PDP collaborators are ignorant of the wordings of section 115 of the Electoral law they are quoting, as the Governor was never a candidate in any two elections, as they are oblivious of the difference between a candidate and an aspirant.
