Tribunal Sacks Enugu Lawmaker, Declares LP Candidate Winner

House of Representatives tribunal on Wednesday sacked the member representing Igbo Eze North/Udenu federal constituency in Enugu State, Simon Atigwe.

In the same judgment, the tribunal declared Dennis Nnamdi Agbo of the Labour Party (LP) as the actual winner of the constituency rerun election.

It would be recalled that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Atigwe of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the winner of the re-run election held on February 3rd, 2024.

INEC announced that the PDP’s candidate polled 23863 votes to defeat Agbo who secured 23226 votes.

Speaker Of House Of Representatives
Agbo who had earlier won the February 25th, 2023 election but was sacked by the appellate court proceeded to the tribunal to challenge Atigwe’s declaration.

His lawyers argued that the rerun election was marred by wrong computation of results and substantial non-compliance to the electoral act among others.

In their ruling on Wednesday, 14th August, the Tribunal headed by Justice H N Kunaza said that the petition had merit and declared Dennis Nnamdi Agbo the actual winner of the Igbo Eze North/ Udenu Federal constituency.

Justice Kunaza’s panel declared invalid, null and void the 2000 votes added to the PDP candidate and restored the votes of 25th February 2023 of 14229 for the PDP and 28870 for the LP candidate Rt. Hon Dennis Agbo.

It also held that Atigwe was not duly elected by the valid votes cast as the petitioner won with 23,221 and PDP 21,863 votes and as such, the certificate of return issued to Atigwe should be withdrawn and issued to Agbo.