Anambra State governor, Chief Willie Obiano can now heave a sigh of relief and deliver democracy dividends to the people of the state. This is following a favourable judgment by the Anambra Governorship Election Petition Tribunal yesterday. The three part judgment dismissed the application of the factional candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance(APGA), Dr Chike Obidigbo, his All Progressives Congress(APC) counterpart, Dr Chris Nwabueze Ngige and PDP candidate, Comrade Tony Nwoye for lacking in merit. The first judgment read by the Justice Ishaq Bello led tribunal on the matter between Dr Obidigbo and Chief Obiano stated that that Chief Obiano was validly nominated as the candidate of APGA, and that the election that brought him to office was conducted in compliance to electoral act as amended. The tribunal also dismissed the issue of multiple registration, saying that no criminal charges were brought against Obiano by any Magistrate or any high court in the state. The tribunal also struck out the petition brought before it by the APC candidate in the 2014 governorship election in Anambra, Dr Ngige on the grounds of irregularities in the election for lack of evidence. Contrary to the claims of Ngige’s counsel that the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) lacks the power to extend the date of election, the tribunal held that INEC has the power to do so, insisting that in the case of unforeseen circumstances, but the important thing is that the election when held should be in consonance with the electoral guideline. Reacting to the victory of Obiano against Obidigbo, the National Chairman of APGA, Chief Victor Umeh said that the judgment of the tribunal has vindicated his party and absolved it of any wrong in fielding Obiano. “We have been vindicated, we sponsored only one in the election, and that is Obiano, and he is the winner. We won the election in a landslide victory, and the tribunal has confirmed so. “For Obidigbo, he was ignorant of the law and the electoral process to have brought this petition to the tribunal, because we never sponsored him at all. All their claims and noise that we sponsored him has fallen today because all the submissions by his counsel and ours were reviewed. “He was trying to rely on a particular judgment that he is the valid candidate of the party, but he did not bring it to court, he knew what would have happened to him if he had brought it. With this victory in Anambra, the party is set to do very well in the next general election.”
