Anambra election: Andy Uba leads battle for annulment of Soludo’s victory

Thursday, December 2, 2021 5:40 pm

Andy Uba and Soludo

Richard Elesho

Just when it appeared that the recently concluded Gubernatorial election results in Anambra State was not going to have any judicial challenge, some eleven political parties and their candidates in a last minute rush, filled separate petitions at the tribunal in Awka on Wednesday.

The flurry of petitions came about 48 hours to the 21 day deadline allowed for complainants to file their cases.

Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Andy Uba who came fourth in the election won by Prof. Charles Soludo of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, in his petition, claimed to have won majority of the valid votes cast and wants the tribunal to declare him as such.

In the same vein candidate of the Action Democratic Party, ADP, Prince Adam Ume-Ezeoke and the party in their petition prayed the tribunal to nullify the election on the grounds that the Bi-Modal Accreditation Verification System (BVAS) is not in the Electoral Act and the malfunctioning ultimately disenfranchised over 90 per cent of the registered voters.

Also, the candidate of the Accord Party (AP), Dr Godwin Maduka, and his party called for the nullification of the election on grounds of irregularities.

Other political parties which filed petitions included the United Patriots which called for the nullification of the election on the grounds that it was wrongfully excluded from the ballot of the party’s name from the ballot.

Others are the Green Party and the Action People’s Party (APP) among others.

Remarkably however, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate Mr Valentine Ozigbo and the candidate of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) Sen Ifeanyi Uba who came second and third respectively did not file petitions at the tribunal.

Meanwhile, the three Tribunal Judges are yet to arrive in Anambra State but following the filling of the petitions Secretary of the tribunal Mr Surajo Gusau said the judges are being expected in Awka very soon.

He debunked the fears that the judges would be sitting in Abuja.

In his reaction, the Special Adviser to Governor Willie Obiano on Political Matters, Mr Ifeatu Obiokoye, said that APGA is ready for the petitions.

He said in an interview: “we shall take it as it comes and we are not losing sleep over those petitions and do not lose sight of the game plan of a particular party and petitioner by sponsoring some lesser political parties to go to tribunal and later withdraw from the suits and collapse into their benefactors at the end of the day.

“Our party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance won the election and we are prepared to defend our mandate at the tribunal

Soludo, a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN was on November 9th declared winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.