Tribunal sacks Abia LP Reps member, Amobi Ogah

Isiukwuato/Umunneochi federal constituency elections were contested between Hon. Amobi Ogah of the Labour Party, LP, and the current Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Nkiruka Onyejiocha. Hon. Amobi Ogah’s election was overturned by the National Assembly election petition tribunal sitting in Umuahia, Abia State.

The tribunal decided that Ogah’s rise to power and subsequent win did not follow the Electoral Act.

Amobi Ogah, a candidate for the Labour Party, received 11,769 votes, while Onyejiocha, a candidate for the People’s Democratic Party, received 8,752. INEC declared Ogah the victor of the election for the Isiukwuato/Umunneochi federal seat.

Onyejeocha was so dissatisfied with the outcome that he petitioned the National Assembly election petition tribunal to overturn Ogah’s election.

Her petition asked for seven different types of redress.

The three-person panel that heard the petition with the identification number EPT/AB/HR/8/2023 on Wednesday in Umuahia ruled that the Ogah’s nomination as the LP candidate violated the law.

Since “how a candidate is sponsored by a political party is both pre and post election matter,” the court ruled that the respondents failed to provide INEC with the required 21 days’ notice before holding their primary election.

The third respondent has consistently maintained that the primaries are party internal affairs, and they have not provided us with a date for the primaries or any evidence of primaries.

This court concluded that “the results computed by the petitioner are correct and the results computed by the 1st respondent are dis-countenanced” after conducting a thorough examination of the data.

Ogah also claimed that Onyejeocha had given up on her appeal when she accepted the cabinet job.

The court’s decision, however, rejected the lawmaker’s argument.

According to the court, “we are of the view that section 66 is not applicable to this scenario because the petitioner is not a lawmaker of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” and the scenario forbidden by law is a person being a member of two bodies of government.

While the petitioner’s actual votes were not declared by INEC, the tribunal agreed with her that there was overvoting in favor of Amobi Ogah and his LP in several polling units.

The tribunal concluded that after adjusting for the inflated numbers, Onyejiocha received 11,976 votes and Amobi Ogah received 9,736.

Uche Ogah, a former minister of state for mines and steel development, is the older brother of Amobi Ogah.