Appeal Court affirms Uba's senatorial election

The Court of Appeal, Enugu Division has affirmed the election of Sen. Ifeanyi Ubah of Young Progressive Party (YPP) as a senator representing Anambra South in the National Assembly.

Delivering the judgement on Tuesday the three-man panel of justices, chaired by Justice I. M. Salawu in two separate judgments dismissed the appeals brought by two Ubah brothers, Chief Chris Ubah of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Sen. Andy Ubah of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The two brothers had lost their petitions at the National and State House of Assembly Elections Petitions Tribunal in Awkin that affirmed Ifeanyi's election on September 9, 2019, and declared him as duly elected.

Dissatisfied with the judgement of the trial court, the Ubah brothers approached the appellate court on grounds of alleged miscarriage of justice by the tribunal.

They alleged that the tribunal didn't examine the exhibits tendered before arriving at its judgement and urged the court to address the alleged issue of improper accreditation which the trial court allegedly overlooked.

The PDP candidate, Chris, told the court that the three major documents upon which the election result was anchored such as the card reader, voters register and Form EC8A1 had different figures.

Also, Andy urged the appellate court to nullify the election for alleged corrupt practices by Ifeanyi.

He said that the YPP candidate did not only engaged in the inducement of voters but also assaulted and coerced the INEC to announce the result of the election in his favour.

But three-man panel in the judgement dismissed the submissions of Chris’ witnesses as hearsay evidence.

It also held that the witnesses presented at the trial court by Andy did not discharge their duties.

The court, therefore, aligned itself with the judgments of the trial court and dismissed the appeals as unmeritorious.

The court directed Chris to pay a cost of N50, 000 each to the 1st to 10th respondents and N200, 000 to the 11th respondent.

Andy was directed to pay a cost of N400, 000 to each of the two sets of respondents.