A
Federal High Court in Abuja has sacked two members of the House of
Representatives from Enugu State.
The
sacked legislators, elected to the House on the platform of the Peoples
Democratic Party, are Stella Ngwu representing Igbo-Etti/Uzo-Uwani Federal
Constituency and Mr. Dennis Agbo representing Igbo Eze North/Udenu Federal
Constituency.
Justice
Okon Abang delivered separate judgments in sacking the two legislators on
Friday but the enrolled orders of the court were certified on Tuesday.
Justice
Abang in the separate judgments ordered Gabriel Okafor to replace Ngwu as the
representative of Igbo-Etti/Uzo-Uwani Federal Constituency and Mr. Chijoke Ugwu
to replace Agbo and take over the seat of Igbo Eze North/Udenu Federal
Constituency.
Okafor
and Ugwu are the plaintiffs in the two separate suits, marked
FHC/ABJ/CS/1088/14 and FHC/ABJ/CS/1104, challenging the nomination of the
sacked legislators as the candidates of the party.
The
PDP, the National Working Committee of the party and the Independent National
Electoral Commission were the 1st to 3rd defendants in the two suits.
While
Ngwu was the 4th defendant in Okafor’s suit, Agbo was the fourth defendant in
Ugwu’s.
The
judge ruled that the sacked legislators were wrongly nominated by the PDP as
they did not emerge as the winners of the primaries conducted by the PDP for
the purpose of the last year’s House of Representatives elections in their
constituencies.
He
held that it was unconstitutional, illegal and unlawful for the PDP and its
National Working Committee to have conducted the primaries from which the
sacked legislators emerged using the lists of delegates other than the ones
produced from the ward congresses held on November 1, 2014.
Justice
Abang ruled that the emergence of Ngwu and Agbo violated provisions of sections
85 – 89 of the Electoral Act, 2010 and Electoral Guidelines for Primary
Elections.
He
held that the plaintiffs were able to prove their cases by showing that the
authentic primaries held on December 6, 2014 with proof of the results declared
at the end of the exercise, the panel’s report on the primaries and the lists
of delegates used.
The
judge ordered the sacked legislators to refund their earnings, citing the
Supreme Court judgment on Gwede Vs INEC delivered in 2015.
Source:The
Punch
Tags
Politics