Politics

Controversial Abang sacks two Enugu Reps

Published

8 years ago

October 18, 2016

Controversial Abang sacks two Enugu Reps

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja and presided over by Justice Okon Abang, who has been notable for some controversial judgments in recent times, has sacked two House of Representatives members.

The members who are from Enugu State are Stella Ngwu from Igbo-Etiti/Uzo-Uwani Federal Constituency and Dennis Nnmachi Agbo from Igbo-Eze North/Udenu Federal Constituency.

The court asked them to vacate their seats immediately on alleged wrongful emergence as flagbearers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 general elections.

Their political rivals had in separate suits later merged by the court, argued that Stella Ngwu and Denis Agbo’s emergence as flagbearers of the party were illegal, on the reason that they were not elected delegates to represent the party at its congress held on November 1 2014.

The 1st and 2nd defendants in the suits were the PDP and its National Working Committee (NWC) while the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was the 3rd defendant. The 4th defendants in the two separate suits were Ms Ngwu and Mr Agbo.

They had urged the court to declare the election of the fourth defendants null and void and Abang, in his judgment, declared Gabriel Okafor as the rightful winner of Igbo-Eze North/Udenu Federal Constituency seat election and Chijioke Ugwu, as winner of the Egbo-Eze North/Udenu Federal Constituency in Enugu State in 2015.

He held that the PDP and its NWC had no right or authority to use any delegate list for the election of its candidate for Igbo-Etiti/Uzo-Uwani and Igbo-Eze North/Udenu Federal Constituencies, respectively, other than the list of delegates that emerged at congresses held on November 1, 2014.

Abang had a week ago, in a ruling many consider controversial, held that Jimoh Ibrahim was the rightful governorship candidate of the PDP for the forthcoming Ondo gubernatorial election and ordered INEC to replace the name of Eyitayo Jegede with that of Ibrahim.

It was Abang who also gave the ruling that sacked Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State and ordered that Uche Ogah be sworn-in as the governor of Abia. The ruling was later faulted by the Appeal Court.

Also, in his judgement on Sheriff’s suit against the National Convention of the PDP slated to hold on August 17, in Port Harcourt Rivers State, he had ruled in favour of Sheriff and ordered Nigerian Police to stop the convention as scheduled, even when a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt had earlier sanctioned the convention.

RipplesNigeria …without borders, without fears

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now