Court sacks Ebonyi PDP chairman over late submission of nomination form

A federal high court in Abuja has sacked Tochukwu Okorie as chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ebonyi.

Delivering ruling in the suit on Wednesday, Ahmed Mohammed, the presiding judge, held that Okorie was not validly nominated to contest the election having submitted his nomination form on October 4, 2021 — days after the October 1, 2021 deadline.

Okorie had polled 1,240 votes to defeat Silas Onu, the former state publicity secretary, who scored 260 votes in the October 16 election.

Dissatisfied, Onu filed a suit challenging the process and listed the PDP Ebonyi chapter and Okorie as first and second defendants, respectively.

Onu prayed the court to rule whether or not Okorie qualified to contest in the October 16 election even after he did not submit his nomination form within the stipulated deadline.

In his judgment, Mohammed held that Okorie cannot be allowed to benefit from his wrongdoing

“It is the opinion of this court that the second defendant (Okorie) was indolent in submitting his nomination form as provided in the guidelines issued by the PDP,” the judge held.

“In spite of this failure, he was still returned and declared elected. He cannot be allowed to benefit from his wrongdoing.”

Consequently, the judge also directed the party to issue a certificate of return to Onu, declaring him as the duly elected chairman of PDP, Ebonyi chapter.

The judge had earlier dismissed the preliminary objection filed by the PDP where it alleged that Onu did not exhaust internal mechanisms available for resolving party matters before heading to court.

He ruled that PDP’s objection failed because the party was silent about the date Okorie submitted his nomination form.

He declared that he found PDP’s failure to deny the allegation by Onu, that Okorie submitted his nomination form on October 4 instead of October 1, 2021, as an admission of wrongdoing.

“The consequence is that Okorie’s nomination form, submitted on October 4, 2021, instead of October 1, 2021, was submitted out of time,’’ Mohammed insisted.