Enugu guber: Appeal court dismisses APC candidate’s suit against Peter Mbah

The court of appeal in Enugu has dismissed a suit filed by Uche Nnaji, governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), challenging the victory of Peter Mbah, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Mbah polled 160,895 votes to defeat Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party (LP), who scored 157,552 votes and Frank Nweke II of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), who polled 17,983 votes.

Nnaji came fourth with 14,575 votes.

Nnaji had filed a petition challenging Mbah’s election on the grounds that the governor at the time of the election, had allegedly presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

He also averred that Mbah was not duly elected by a majority of the lawful votes cast during the election. 

He prayed the tribunal to disqualify Mbah, Edeoga, and Nweke and either declare him the winner of the poll or order INEC to conduct a runoff election between him and other candidates excluding Mbah.

However, the Enugu state governorship election petition tribunal dismissed the petition on June 20 for not being filed in accordance with the provisions of the electoral act.

Consequently, Nnaji approached the court of appeal, seeking to reverse the tribunal verdict.

The APC candidate had alternatively prayed to the appellate court to order the tribunal to hear the petition again on its merit.

But at the resumed hearing of the suit marked CA/E/E/EP/GOV/EN/01/2023 on Tuesday, the court of appeal upheld the decision of the tribunal and dismissed the case accordingly.

The appellate court equally awarded the sum of N250,000 each against Nnaji and the APC.