The National and State Assembly Elections Petition Tribunal sitting in Makurdi has declared Mr. Samson Okwu of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as winner of the March 23 National Assembly election held for Oju/Obi Federal Constituency.
Delivering judgement on the petition filed by Samson Okwu against Mr. David Ogewu of All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, the tribunal Chairman, Justice Adeleye ordered Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to immediately issue a certificate of return to Mr. Samson Okwu while the earlier certificate of return issued to Mr. David Ogewu of APGA be withdrawn.
According to the Justice Adeleye, all the witnesses called by the petitioner testified to the fact that election results for Obi local government was not collated by the Oju/Obi returning officer adding that the petitioner,
Okwu was able to prove that the collation and declaration of the APGA candidate, was not in compliance with the electoral law as all the processes that led to his declaration were based on hearsay.
He further stated that evidence before the tribunal showed that election in Obi was peacefully conducted but the returning officer did not wait to collate it based on allegation that there was apprehension which made him to announce the result from Oju.
The tribunal Chairman also held that the electoral returning officer for Oju/Obi federal constituency should not have declared David Ogewu as winner of the election where the result of Obi local government of over 59,000 registered voters was not declared.
Earlier, counsel to Mr. Okwu, Ken Ikonne, San, stated that the collection of result from Oju had some mathimatical errors and the tribunal agreed with him that 252 votes had no origin more so that the counsel to the respondent, Mr. Ogewu did not disprove the claim.
Therefore, 252 votes out of the total votes polled by the APGA candidate in Oju was deducted which brought the total votes in the two local govt for Mr. David Ogewu to 13, 306 while the petitioner Mr. Samson Okwu got, 14, 300.
With this, Okwu was shown to have a leading a margin of 994 votes.
Noting that the Tribunal had power to add up valid votes in the two LGAs, the tribunal chairman accordingly held that in the final collated result Samson Okwu of the PDP led with a total of 994 votes and directed INEC to issue him certificate of return.
Reacting to the judgment, the chairman of Obi Local government, Mr. Joseph Ipenyi described the judgment as wonderful and a victory to the people of Obi local government.
He called on the candidate of the APGA, Mr. David Ogewu to embrace Mr. Samson Okwu, the House of Representative member for Oju/Obi Federal Constituency to chart a way forward for the development of Igede land.