The Supreme Court on Thursday declared Barrister Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere as the authentic People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate of the House of Representatives for Ideato North and South Federal Constituency, Imo State.
The judgment of the apex court has finally put to rest, the flurry of litigations and schemings from state and non-state actors, to upturn the mandate freely given to Ikenga by the PDP delegates.
The apex court in its decision held that there must be an end to litigations and recklessness as it ruled, just like all the lower courts before it, that there are no grounds put before it, to nullify the ticket of the party in the custody of Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, having fulfilled all the provisions of the law and complied with stipulated guidelines.
A five-member panel of Justices of the Supreme Court gave the judgement on the appeal marked SC/CV/1439/2022, which had, the PDP, INEC, Mrs Chidimma Uzomba, Mr Anthony Obinna as respondents, filed by Hon. George Igbo (appellant) challenging the decision of the Court of Appeal, Owerri Division.
In dismissing the appeal by Hon. Igbo, the Supreme Court upheld the preliminary objections raised by Ugochinyere and the PDP and agreed with the decision of the court below noting that, “The abysmal failure and/or refusal of the Appellant’s counsel to compile (sic) with the rules of procedure in prosecuting the Appeal and indeed abandoned same.
“The Appellant filed his notice of appeal at the lower court on the 9th day of September 2022 within the 14 days period from the date of Judgment of the trial court as provided by the Electoral Act 2022 and Section 285(9) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended. “Section 9 of the Election Judicial Proceedings Practice direction, 2022 mandatorily provided that the Re