October 09, (THEWILL) – The Enugu Division of the Court of Appeal has sacked Simon Atigwe, a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) House of Representatives member, representing the Igboeze North/Udenu federal constituency of Enugu State.
A three-member panel of the appellate court, led by Justice Justice Ekanem, in a unanimous judgement on Wednesday, upheld the ruling of the House of Representatives tribunal which declared Dennis Agbo of the Labour Party as the rightful winner of the rerun election held on February 3, 2024.
THEWILL reports that the bye-election petition tribunal, sitting in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, had on September 14, sacked Atigwe. It declared invalid, null and void, the 2,000 votes added to the PDP candidate and restored the votes of 25th February 2023 of 14,229 for the PDP and 28,870 for the LP candidate, Dennis Agbo.
The Tribunal had also held that Atigwe was not duly elected by the valid votes cast as the petitioner won with 23,221 and PDP 21,863 votes and as such, the certificate of return issued to Atigwe be withdrawn and issued to Agbo.
Atigwe had approached the appellate court to challenge the ruling of the Election Tribunal.
