BREAKING: Supreme Court Affirms APC’s Nwifuru As Ebonyi Governor

The Supreme Court has affirmed Francis Nwifuru as the governor of Ebonyi state.

THE WHISTLER recalls that the Ebonyi State Election Petitions Tribunal in Abuja and the Appeal Court had concurrently affirmed the election of Nwifuru in an appeal filed by Dr. Chukwuma Ifeanyi Odii of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced Francis Nwifuru winner of the poll with 199,131 votes.

Dr. Chukwuma Ifeanyi Odii of the PDP came second with 80,191 votes.

But Odii and PDP approached the Tribunal seeking the nullification of Nwifuru’s election on the grounds of non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2022 and alleged failure to score the majority of lawful votes cast at the guber poll.

Odii and the PDP legal team contended that the governor was at the time of the election, not qualified to contest the election on the platform of the APC because he was still a member of the People’s Democratic Party.

But the Nwifuru’s party, the APC submitted a letter before the Tribunal showing that the governor resigned from the PDP while serving as Speaker of the State House of Assembly, and defected to the APC before its primary election.

In its judgment, the three-man panel of the Tribunal chaired by Justice O. Lekan held that the issue of nomination and sponsorship by a political party, being a pre-election matter, should have been challenged before the Federal High Court before the election.

The Tribunal then declined jurisdiction to entertain the grounds of Nwifuru’s sponsorship of APC, saying it was an internal political party matter.

“Membership of a political party is a non justiciable issue,” the Tribunal held.

The Tribunal also said it could not overturn a Federal High Court judgment which observed that Nwifuru defected to the APC while serving as a lawmaker, faulting the PDP for not appealing the trial court judgment before now.

The panel observed that “the petitioners were consistently inconsistent” when they initially contended that Nwifuru was still their member at the time but eventually admitted he had defected to the APC.

On the PDP’s assertion regarding alleged overvoting, mutilation and inflation of results, the Tribunal observed that the petitioners called 20 witnesses who failed to prove that the disputed polling units results sheets were defective or not stamped in line with relevant laws.

More so, the Tribunal observed that the petitioners failed to produce the polling unit results given to their polling unit agents as evidence of alleged electoral malpractice.

The appeal court, while dismissing Odii’s case, also stated that overvoting can only be proved using the Voters Register, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System report and Form EC8As.

Reading out his lead Judgment on Friday, Justice Tijani Abubakar said political party sponsorship and membership is an internal affair and that how a person emerges as a candidate of his political party cannot be challenged by an outsider.

Abubakar agreed with the Tribunal for declining to look into the political party membership of the governor as challenged by the PDP candidate.

On electoral malpractice, the judge held “The appellants have not succeeded to establish any case of electoral non-compliance.”

“On the whole, this appeal is not meritorious and is hereby dismissed,” the judge said.