The National Assembly rerun election Tribunal sitting in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State has declared Hon. Dennis Nnamdi Agbo of Labour Party as the authentic winner of the election into the House of Representatives for Igbo-Eze North/Udenu Federal Constituency of Enugu State.... CLICK TO READ THE FULL NEWS HERE▶▶
Hon. Agbo, who won the February 25, 2023 National Assembly election with a wide margin to his closest rival, Hon. Simon Atigwe of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was sacked by the Appeal Court in November 2023 following an appeal filed against him by Oby Aji, the candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC).
The APC candidate based her ground of appeal on the omission of APC logo on the result sheets used in 165, out of the 532 polling units of the constituency during the February 25, 2023 National Assembly election.
The Appeal Court, on the strength of her prayers, ordered a rerun in the affected polling units within 90 days. The rerun was eventually conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the 3rd of February, 2024.
The rerun election became heavily marred by gross irregularities that saw the electoral body declaring the PDP candidate Hon. Simon Atigwe, who though didn’t contest the result of the earlier election of February 25, 2023, as a winner despite protestations and graphic evidence provided by the Labour Party and its Candidate.
The actual winner was then robbed of victory by a bizarre electoral manipulation and told to ‘go to Court ‘; and to court Hon. went, vacating his seat at the National Assembly ever since. The Labour Party (LP) and its candidate approached the Rerun Tribunal to annul the declaration of Hon. Simon Atigwe and instead declare Honourable AGBO the rightful winner of the election.
The three-man Tribunal headed by Hon. Justice H. N. Kunaza, in its judgement which lasted over 2 hours on upheld Hon. Dennis AGBO’s petition on all grounds and pronounced him and the Labour Party, the true winner of the election, and ordered INEC to immediately issue him with a certificate of return.
Reacting to the judgement, Hon. Agbo described it as a torturous journey that has eventually ended in praise to the glory of Almighty God, who has been gracious to him all the way.
He noted, “it is indeed a huge distraction that has robbed my ever supportive constituents the quality representations l had already started implementing at the 10th Assembly just like l did for them in the 8th Assembly when l first represented Igboeze North/Udenu in the Federal House of Representatives.”
He stressed that all hope was not lost, adding that he would double his efforts to cover up the lost ground.
