The political ambition of Senator Andy Uba was, on Tuesday, thrown into more confusion as the Supreme Court voided his participation in the 2021 governorship election in Anambra State as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress.
A five-member panel of the court held in a judgment, on Tuesday, that the APC breached its own guidelines for the conduct of primaries and thus, failed to conduct valid primary from which Uba emerged as the party’s candidate in the Anambra governorship election.
The apex court affirmed the February 23, 2022 judgment of the Court of Appeal, which upheld the December 20, 2021 judgment by Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
The Supreme Court proceeded to dismiss the appeals filed by Andy Uba and the APC – marked: SC/CV/240/2022 and SC/CV/241/2022.
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In the December 20, 2021 judgment, Justice Ekwo held ,among others, that Uba was never a candidate in the election held on November 6, 2021, having emerged from an illegally conducted primary election held by the APC.
Justice Ekwo held that the plaintiff, in the case marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/648/201, Chief George Moghalu (an APC governorship aspirant for the election) succeeded in proving that the APC did not conduct a valid primary election from which Uba claimed to have emerged as the party’s candidate.
The judge declared that all votes recorded in favour of the APC and its purported candidate by the Independent National Electoral Commission were a waste and should be expunged from the record of the commission on account of being unlawful votes.
The court further held that the names of the APC and Andy Uba be also expunged from INEC’s record on the ground that their purported participation is not known to the country’s electoral laws.
Besides, Justice Ekwo ordered that the sum of N25m collected from the plaintiff in the suit (George Moghalu) be returned to him by the APC due to failure to conduct primary election for all qualified governorship aspirants who paid the mandatory amount but denied fair treatment.
