Umeh to appeal against Ekwunife's victory at tribunal judgment

www.odogwublog.com reports that the former national chairman of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Senatorial candidate of that party in the March, 28 Anambra Central Senatorial election, Chief Victor Umeh has vowed to challenge the judgment of the first National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Awka which upheld the election of Hon. Mrs. Uche Lillian Ekwunife’s election today.
Umeh said the tribunal was in error by holding that party primary which was one of the issues he raised in his petition is an internal affair of political parties.
He argued that this cannot be true because the Supreme Court had a ruling in a similar matter in which it held that where a party failed to conduct proper primary election, it will be deemed not to have presented a candidate in the election.
Umeh also pointed out that section 87 of the electoral act is explicit on this, pointing out that an election petition tribunal sitting in Lokoja, Kogi state had disqualified a Governorship candidate for not emerging through proper party primaries.
Umeh also said the tribunal was in error to have upheld one of the figures issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in declaring Ekwunife winner noting that INEC issued two conflicting figures of votes from the Senatorial election which has over 7000 votes difference and wondered what the tribunal did with the difference.
It will be recalled that INEC issued 101,548 for PDP and 77,129 votes for APGA; and later 93,860 for PDP and 85, 898 for APGA leaving a difference of 7,962 votes.
Umeh noted that “the tribunal has not accounted for the missing figures”.
Umeh also said that the tribunal deliberately refused to treat the issue of polling units where the number of votes cast exceeded number of registered voters just to achieve its target.
He added: “An election which result goes up and down that way shows there were massive irregularities and infractions. If you remove the unlawful votes from the polling units I complained against, I will have the highest number of lawful votes cast in the election’, Umeh concluded.