Appeal Court Sacks Enugu PDP Representative, Declares LP Elected

The Court of Appeal in Enugu has removed Simon Atigwe, the House of Representatives member for Igboeze North/Udenu Federal Constituency.

Simon Atigwe, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), lost his seat to Dennis Ndubisi Agbo from the Labour Party (LP).

The Appeal Court’s decision upheld the previous ruling by the Election Petition Tribunal, which stated that Atigwe was not duly elected because he did not receive a majority of valid votes in the rerun election.

Atigwe was initially declared the winner of the rerun election held on February 3, 2024, by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

This declaration was contested by Labour Party candidate Dennis Agbo at the Tribunal.

INEC had reported that Atigwe received 23,863 votes, while Agbo received 23,226 votes, a margin of 637 votes.

However, the Court found a computational error and agreed with Agbo’s challenge.

Agbo, who had originally won the election on February 25, 2023, was removed from office by the appellate Court and went to the Tribunal to contest Atigwe’s declaration.

In its ruling, the Appeal Panel declared the additional 2,000 votes given to the PDP candidate invalid and restored the results from February 25, 2023, which showed the PDP with 14,229 votes and the Labour Party with 18,870 votes.

The Court determined that Simon Atigwe was not elected based on valid votes, stating that Agbo won with 23,221 votes compared to Atigwe’s 21,863.

Therefore, the Certificate of Return issued to Atigwe should be revoked and given to Agbo of the Labour Party.

Meanwhile, the Federal High Court in Abuja has ruled that Julius Abure is the rightful Chairman of the Labour Party.