Court nullifies Ebonyi LG polls over undemocratic conduct

A federal high court in Abakaliki, Ebonyi state, has nullified the local government elections recently conducted in the state.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) won all 13 chairmanship seats in the election conducted on July 30.

Jossy Eze, chairman of the Ebonyi state Independent Electoral Commission (EBSIEC), said APC also won all the 171 councillorship seats.

However, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) instituted a suit challenging the outcome of the election.

In the suit marked FHC/AI/CS/151/2022, the PDP accused the electoral commission and the Ebonyi state government of failing to comply with the Electoral Act 2022, among other infractions.

Delivering judgment on Thursday, Fatun Riman, the presiding judge, declared the election null and void, holding that it was undemocratic and unlawful.

Speaking with journalists after the court session, Mudi Erhenedi, counsel to the PDP, said justice has been served.

“It is undemocratic and unlawful to conduct an election into the local government areas or council without availing the plaintiffs with the exact law that is meant to regulate the exercise,” he said.

“There are a lot of other issues with non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2022. The Electoral Act 2022 said the procedures for conducting elections in the local government areas by state commissioners must comply with that procedure for conducting into area councils in the FCT.

“If you look at it, how do you access compliance without law if you hide the law with which you want to conduct the election is it not when you make the law public that we will know whether you complied with it or not, how can you be making laws and hiding them.

“My position now is that my clients demanded to be availed of this law, we came under the freedom of information act it intending the procedure to conduct elections, we wrote to EBSIEC, we wrote the House of Assembly, we wrote to INEC whose responsibilities all of these bodies refused to provide us with the law.”