Tony Nwoye of the Labour Party (LP) won the election for the Anambra North Senatorial District on February 25, but Mrs. Stella Oduah and her party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), filed two separate appeals contesting his victory. The State and National Assembly Appeal Court, located in Lagos, has reserved judgement in both cases.
After hearing from each of the participating attorneys, the three-judge panel continued the proceedings for the purpose of rendering a decision.
Stella Oduah’s plea was denied by the National Assembly Election plea Tribunal in Awka, Anambra State, in its ruling on September 6 because it lacked merit.
Dissatisfied, Oduah and the PDP challenged Nwoye’s election as a senator representing Anambra North District.
Nwoye had polled 94,779 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Oduah of the PDP, who scored 50,146 votes, according to the result of the election declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
In a related development, another panel of the court has reserved judgment in the appeal filed by Hon. Onosede Igbinedion, the daughter of business mogul, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, in her bid to again serve as representative of the Ovia Federal Constituency of Edo State.
Omosede, who represented the Constituency on the PDP platform in the 8th Assembly, lost to the All Progressives Congress’ Dennis Idahosa in March 2019 and again failed to unseat him in the Feb 2023 National Assembly Elections.
Hon. Idahosa had polled 19,851 to defeat Igbinedion who scored 18, 396 votes according to INEC.
Dissatisfied with the return of Idahosa, Igbinedion approached the tribunal seeking his disqualification but the three-man panel in its judgment struck out her petition for lack of merit.
Before the three-man appeal panel on Wednesday, lawyers in the proceedings adopted their briefs of arguments.
Igbinedion’s counsel, Mahmud Magaji (SAN) in adopting his brief of arguments, urged the court to allow the appeal and set aside the judgment of the tribunal.
Among other things Igbinedion and her party are seeking an order from the court setting aside the return of the third respondent, Idahosa as the winner of the election of Ovia North & South West Fed Constituency of Edo State and an order withdrawing the certificate of return issued to him by INEC or in the alternative an order of court directing INEC to conduct supplementary elections in the specific polling units and wards where elections either did not hold or had their results cancelled.
Counsel to Idahosa, Bode Olanipekun (SAN) also adopted his brief of arguments and urged the court to dismiss the appeal.