The Enugu State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal has asked the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, Okey Ezea to pay the sum of N150,000 for what it called frivolous case that lacked merit and which was an abuse of court process.
This was even as the Tribunal upheld the election of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi in the April 11, 2015 governorship election which the APC challenged.
In dismissing the petition filed Okey Ezea, the Tribunal held that several paragraphs of Ezea’s petition were earlier struck out for being imprecise and vague.
The chairman of the tribunal, Justice Kwajafa Hildad, who delivered the judgment that lasted over three hours, said that the petition equally contained criminal allegations against people who were not made parties to the case.
According to him, the petitioner’s allegations of over-voting and non-accreditation, through the manipulation of the card reader machine by the Independent National Electoral Commission and other respondents, were not sufficiently proved as it was only the voters register that could determine the number of people that voted in an election.
He maintained that the petitioner failed to provide the voter registers to prove his case.
The tribunal also noted that the petitioner only provided six witnesses drawn from only six polling units out of the 2,958 polling units in the state, a figure which was seen as insufficient.
The tribunal held that the six witnesses admitted that the governorship election was free, fair and peaceful “with minor irregularities, which were not sufficient enough to cancel the election.” [myad]
Home FEATURES Enugu Tribunal Punishes APC Gubber Candidate For Abusing Court Process, Affirms Ugwuanyi’s...
