Anthony Iwuoma
The controversy trailing the just concluded Imo North Senatorial by-election is yet to abate, as the Independent National Electoral Commission has insisted that only the court will determine which candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, is legitimate and winner of the December 5 election.
National Commissioner and Chairman of INEC Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, made the disclosure in Lagos while featuring on a television programme in Lagos.
INEC had declared APC the winner of the election but failed to ascribe a candidate to the victory to which the duo of Sir Frank Ibezim and Senator Ifeanyi Araraume, are both laying claim.
The Court of Appeal sitting in Owerri sacked Ifeanyi Araraume as the APC candidate when it upturned an earlier ruling by Federal High Court, Owerri, which ordered INEC to replace Ibezim’s name with Araraume’s.
Consequently, Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam, who delivered the judgment, had reinstated Ibezim as the authentic candidate of the APC on the eve of the election.
However, on the same Friday, the Federal High Court in Abuja also disqualified Ibezim as the APC candidate for the by-election thus throwing the electoral body into confusion.
Nevertheless, Okoye explained that INEC declared APC the winner of the election without a candidate because of the conflicting court judgments, saying the court would resolve the imbroglio.
The INEC commissioner said: “Three things may likely happen in the Imo North Senatorial Bye-election. One of the candidates is already in the Supreme Court and the issue in the Supreme Court is whether the Federal High Court has jurisdiction to entertain the matter in the first place and whether the matter was decided first within the domestic realm of the party.
“If the Supreme Court determines that the court of first instance has jurisdiction over the matter, the implication is that Senator Ifeanyi Araraume becomes the candidate of the party and will now be returned as duly elected.
“If on the other hand, the Supreme Court determines that the Court of Appeal was right in striking out the matter and that the court of first instance does not have jurisdiction over the matter, that means that Senator Ifeanyi Araraume is out of the contest.”
