The Court of Appeal in Abuja has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognise Udom Ekpoudom as the authentic candidate for Akwa Ibom North-West senatorial district.
A three-member panel of the appellate court on Monday nullified the election that produced Godswill Akpabio as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Akwa Ibom North-West senatorial district.
The panel also set aside the judgement of a Federal High Court which ordered INEC to accept and publish Akpabio’s name as the party’s candidate.
The Backstory: Mr Akpabio had contested in the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primaries which he lost to Bola Ahmed Tinubu. After losing out, He resorted to picking the senatorial tickets of the party for the Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial Districts.
However, Udom Ekpoudom had already emerged as a candidate after participating in the primaries which were supervised by INEC officials.
Fortunately for Akpabio, the first primary conducted in the zone on May 28, 2022, was cancelled following security infractions during the primary election.
The rerun election was conducted and Mr Akpabio won the rerun poll having polled 478 votes. Subsequently, his name was forwarded to INEC as the candidate.
However, INEC still failed to recognise Mr Akpabio as the senatorial candidate, which led to him approaching the court and filing a suit against INEC.
The earlier judgement: INEC told the Federal High Court that Akpabio was not recognised because it only supervised the May 27 primary election and not the June 9 election conducted by APC’s National Working Committee (NWC). But the judge rejected INEC’s submission and held that the consequences of INEC’s failure to monitor the election cannot be visited on Akpabio.
During the trial judge, Justice Emeka Nwite also held that it is only the NWC of a political party that can conduct valid primaries as it is authorised by law to conduct such primaries.
Consequently, he ordered INEC to accept and publish Akpabio’s name as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial District.
INEC published the final list of candidates with Akpabio’s name as the APC candidate for Akwa Ibom Northwest Senatorial District.
Not satisfied by the decision of the trial court, Mr Ekpoudom approached the court of appeal.
Appeal Court’s decision: In its decision on Monday, the appellate court held that Akpabio being a presidential aspirant of the APC, could not have participated in the valid senatorial primary of the same party held on May 27 and monitored by INEC.
Consequently, The court ordered INEC to recognise Mr Ekpoudom as the authentic candidate for Akwa Ibom’s North-West senatorial district.
