Obinna Ngonadi, the Nnewi North Anambra State House of Assembly Candidate of Young Progressive Party (YPP) in the March 9th election and his party, have filed their appeal against the judgement of the National And State Houses of Assembly Election Petition Tribunal, Anambra State, at Appeal Court Enugu.
They are challenging the judgment of the National And State Houses of Assembly Election Petition Tribunal, Anambra State, which affirmed the election of Hon. Nonso Okafor, who contested under the platform of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA).
The appeal is predicated on 14 grounds, which they believed Justices of the tribunal erred in their verdict on Obinna Ngonadi and YPP’s petition against the election of Hon. Nonso Okafor.
The three-member panel led by Justice E. O. Haruna, assisted by Hon. Justice O. S. Olusnaya and Hon. Justice Destina O. Oko had in their judgment delivered on Sept. 23, dismissed the entire petition filed by Obinna Ngonadi and YPP for lacking merit and substance.
The panel in dismissing the petition held that Obinna Ngonadi and YPP were unable to prove the number of registered voters in the polling units in which results were either cancelled on the basis of over voting or polling units where election did not hold. According to the panel, the petitioner cannot rely on the result sheet tendered by the witnesses of the respondent to prove the number of registered voters in the disputed polling units.They further held that the Obinna Ngonadi and YPP did not convince them that the election of Nonso Okafor (Smart) was invalid by reason of substantial non-compliance with the provision of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) and Electoral Guidelines.
For that of Appeal Court, which kicked off today, Wednesday, 30th October 2019, Obinna Ngonadi and YPP’s appeal is centred on issues bordering around inconclusiveness of the election and the request for a supplementary election.
The appellants, Obinna Ngonadi and Young Progressive Party (YPP) are seeking that the appeal court should declare the House of Assembly election for Nnewi North State Constituency held on the 9th day of March, 2019 inconclusive for the reason that the margin of win declared for the election is less than the number of registered voters in the polling units where the election did not hold or was cancelled, alleging that the margin of lead of 848 votes as against 2784 registered voters is injustice
Also that the court should conduct a supplementary election and collate results from the polling units where the election was not held or cancelled in that election, to determine the winner of the election.
They are praying the apex court to hold that the tribunal erred in its decision and consequently set the tribunal’s judgment aside and go ahead to grant all the reliefs sought.
It is important to note, that Obinna Ngonadi and Young Progressive Party (YPP), in the National And State Houses of Assembly Election Petition Tribunal, Anambra State initially alleged that the respondent, Nonso Okafor was not duly elected or returned by the majority of lawful votes cast at the election.
They noted that they scored the majority of lawful votes cast at the election.
He prayed that he should be declared a winner of the election, claiming that he polled the highest number of lawful votes cast at the election.
With the petition filed at the Appeal Court, Obinna Ngonadi and YPP have abandoned the prayers of being declared the winner as it is validly clear that Nonso Okafor won the election. He is more interested in seeing that the court grants his request for a supplementary election.
It will be recalled that Obinna Ngonadi and his party, YPP had dragged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) before the Tribunal for declaring Nonso Okafor as the winner of the March 9th 2019, Anambra State House of Assembly Election.
Mentioned as respondents are Nonso Okafor, All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
In the said election, Nonso Okafor polled 13,231 votes to emerge, winner, defeating his closest rival, Obinna Ngonadi of the Young Progressive Party (YPP), who polled 12,383.
Before the election, despite the financial intimidation, on October 4th, 2018, against all expectations, Nonso Okafor, won the primary election of his party, with thirty-four (34) votes, defeating his closest rival, Obinna Ngonadi who got twenty-eight (28)votes.In the spirit of sportsmanship, out of the five (5) persons who contested the primaries against him, four (4) of them which are; Hon. Nnayelu Onyejepu, Engr. Law Okeke, Barr. Ikenna Ubezuonu and Hon. Kenson Okeke threw their full weight behind him.
In what was described as an act of desperation, Dr. Obinna Ngonadi backed out and joined the Young Progressive Party (YPP).
In the build-up to the election, barefaced, blatant and brazen lies was launched on All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) and her candidate, Nonso Okafor, to the extent that he was abused and ridiculed by one of the opponents who said that the Mother of Smart sold bean cake (Akara), therefore, he has no right to be contesting such election. Few oligarchs who have continued to play god over the years refused to toe the line of the large majority of the masses, they deployed their financial war chest and propaganda machine in an attempt to impose their preferred candidate.
On 9th March, Ndi Nnewi went to the polls, the majority of voters rejected the Five (5) KG bag of rice, two (2) sachet of Indomie Noddles and cash of Three Thousand (3000) Naira, which was a reward to vote against their conscience, they voted for Nonso Okafor not because of his party but due to their determination to change the status quo of representation in Nnewi.
Out of the sixteen (16) candidates that contested the election, it was only Obinna Ngonadi that rejected the result of the election and approached the court.
It is painful that millions of naira is being wasted in a brotherly contest. Despite the olive branch extended to him, he has refused to heed to the voice of reason to end the ligations and save the representative these distractions.
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