Election tribunal: Court sacks Benue federal lawmaker
- The Beneu election tribunal has sacked David Ogewu as the winner of the 2019 election for Oju/Obi constituency
- Ogewu's certificate of return was also ordered to be withdrawan by the Independent National Electoral Commission
- The tribunal in its judgement ordered that the certificate of return should be handed over to Samson Okwu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
The National and State Assembly Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Benue state has sacked a member of the House of Representatives, David Ogewu, as the legitimate winner of the 2019 election for Oju/Obi constituency.
The tribunal also ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to withdraw the certificate of return issued to Ogewu, a member of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA).
According to the tribunal, the certificate of return should be handed over to Samson Okwu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
In his ruling on Wednesday, August 28, Justice A.A Adeleye declared that the petitioner won the election with a margin of 994 votes cast in the two local government areas of the constituency.
The judge also faulted INEC's decision of declaring Ogewu as winner of the election without including results from Obi local government area.
Stating that the tribunal had the authority to compute the results, Adeleye said that based on only the result for Oju, the 12, 794 votes allotted to Ogewu against Okwu’s 6, 797 votes were invalid.
Including results from Obi where Okwu of PDP scored 7, 543 votes against Mr Ogewu’s 754 vote, the tribunal justice also deducted 252 votes scored by the APGA candidate in Oju local government area.
According to the judge, the results were allotted to him in error.
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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that an Appeal Court on Friday, July 26, dismissed appeals by the governor of Benue state, Samuel Ortom against the decision of the Benue tribunal on the 2019 election.
The tribunal in its ruling said the appeals by the governor to reserve all rulings on applications till final judgement on the main petition lacked merit.
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