The Federal High Court in Abuja’s decision to dismiss Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State and his deputy, Dr. Kelechi Igwe, for leaving the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the All Progressives Congress has been overturned by the Court of Appeal in Abuja (APC).
The 393,042 votes that Umahi received in the 2019 governorship election belonged to the PDP and could not legally be transferred to the APC, to which the governor defected, according to Justice Inyang Ekwo’s ruling in a lawsuit contesting Umahi’s transfer of the PDP governorship mandate to another party.
Umahi resigned the PDP in November 2020, blaming it on “injustice” meted out to the nation’s southeast.
As a result, the PDP filed a lawsuit against the governor, the governor’s deputy, the APC, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The PDP requested that the court declare that the governor and deputy governor of Ebonyi state have resigned or were presumed to have resigned from office as a result of leaving the party for which they were nominated and elected.
According to the court’s ruling, Umahi and his deputy abandoned the PDP and all of the votes that belonged to it when they switched to the APC.
According to the ruling, the position of governor and deputy governor in Ebonyi State “belongs to the plaintiff and no other political party” based on the results of the governorship election.
According to Ekwo, there is no constitutional provision that allows voters to switch their ballots from one party to the other.
The judge ruled that neither neither the governor nor his deputy could legally transfer the votes and mandate from the Ebonyi state electorate to the APC, the PDP must keep them.
As a result, the court ruled that Umahi and Igwe must quit their jobs right away.
The court further directed INEC to organize a new governorship election in Ebonyi state in accordance with section 177(c) of the 1999 constitution, as amended, or to promptly obtain from the PDP the names of candidates to replace Umahi and his deputy.
It was stopped the Umahi and Igwe combination from continuing to pose as the governor and deputy governor of Ebonyi state.
The Governor then challenged the lower court’s ruling to the Court of Appeal’s Abuja division.
The nation’s Constitution does not specify any punishment for a governor or deputy governor who defected from the party on whose platform they were elected, according to a three-member panel of the appellate court who decided on the case on Friday.
The main judge, Justice Haruna Tsanami, declared that a political party who has been wronged by the defection of a governor or deputy governor has no choice except to consider using the constitutional provision for impeachment.
The Court of Appeal in Abuja agreed with a previous ruling rendered by the court’s Enugu division on the identical matter.
