The Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal, on Friday, declared Valentine Ozigbo the lawful candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2021 Anambra State gubernatorial election.
The judges arrived at their decision after considering lawyers’ arguments. The panel of justices led by Dongban Mensa dismissed the primary conducted by the Chukwudi Umeaba-led faction of the party which produced Ugochukwu Uba as its flag bearer and validated the candidature of Ozigbo.
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Recall that Ozigbo emerged from a primary election conducted by the Ndubuisi Nwobu-led National Working Committee (NWC) on June 26.
On this ground, the court ordered the NEC to immediately publish his name as the candidate of the PDP for the November 6 governorship race.
The appeal court also awarded N10 million against Uba, a former senator and his lawyers for forum shopping.
INEC had on July 16 published the list of cleared candidates of all the political parties for the Anambra election, with PDP candidate conspicuously missing from the listed.
