Court orders INEC to include PDP in Ananbra Senatorial re-run

The Senatorial re-run in Anambra Central has been postponedon Tuesday by Independent National Electoral Commission.

Announcing the postponement at a stakeholders’ meeting at the Professor Dora Akunyili Women’s Development Centre, Awka, the Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Dr. Lawrence Azubuike, said the shift followed a court order.

Although Azubuike did not elaborate on the nature of the court order, it was learnt that a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, had, on Monday, given a judgment ordering INEC to include the Peoples Democratic Party in the rerun.

INEC had barred the PDP from participating in the rerun following a Court of Appeal’s judgment on December 7, 2015, which nullified the Mach 28 election of the party’s candidate, Mrs Uche Ekwunife.

The appellate court had, in the judgment, averred that “the 11th respondent (Ekwunife) has been barred from participating in the Anambra Central senatorial election”.

The PDP subsequently approached the Federal High Court, Abuja, praying that the court should order INEC to allow it to participate in the rerun, a prayer the court granted on Monday.

Reacting to the judgment, the candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance in the rerun, Chief Victor Umeh, described the court’s judgment as absurd.

He said the judgment had negated the principle of law that every decision of a higher court supercedes the order of a lower court.

Umeh argued that a Federal High Court lacked the power to assume jurisdiction in a matter already adjudicated upon by the Court of Appeal.

He threatened to drag the Federal High Court Judge to the National Judicial Commission for brazen impunity and misapplication of the law.

Umeh, a former chairman of APGA, accused the former governor of the state, Mr Peter Obi, of plotting to stop him from winning the rerun.

Meanwhile,Obi may emerge a consensus candidate of the PDP in the rerun.

A former Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism in the state, Chief Joe Uzodike, said this on Tuesday at a press briefing in Awka.

He stated that top PDP members had mounted pressure on Obi to contest the senatorial rerun, adding that the former governor “has no option but to oblige”.

But the National Chairman of APGA, Chief Victor Oye, described the PDP’s move to draft Obi into the rerun race as wishful thinking.

Oye added, “We are not afraid of any person in this election. We’ve the capacity to crush anybody in the rerun, including Obi, but our argument is that Peter Obi is not qualified for this rerun.

“The law is clear on this, that only the candidates that contested the annulled election shall be qualified to participate in the rerun. Obi is not part of it.”