The contest between Hon. Blessing Nwagba (PDP) and Hon. Emeka Nnamani (APGA) for the Aba North State constituency seat of Abia state House of Assembly have shifted from the election field proper to the election tribunal with the media playing a pivot role in shaping the minds of Abians and Nigerians concerning the case so far.
AFN did an in-depth assessment of the case and the following was discovered; Aba North and South LGAs were the strongest hold of APGA during the last general election, which resulted in landslide victory for APGA in all contested positions, Hon.Emeka Nnamani got the highest vote compared to other House of Assembly members and the difference between the Hon. Emeka Nnamani ‘s votes with that of Hon. Blessing Nwagba is well above twenty thousand (20,000), but Hon. Blessing Nwagba still petitioned the tribunal hanging on some pre and post election matters as reasons.
The basic three substances in the petition of Hon. Blessing Nwabga are; the issue of 6 wards where she alleged that election did not hold on election day in Aba North, but AFN discovered that the total vote gathered by Hon. Emeka Nnamani in those wards are little above 6000 votes, so even if Hon. Emeka decides to throw away those votes he will still be leading Hon. Blessing with above 17,000 votes. Another issue is the inability of Hon.Emeka Nnamani to vote on the election day, that also have been trashed out by INEC witness who laid the blame on INEC not being able to transfer the voters card of Hon.Emeka from Enugu state where he registered to Aba North even though he followed all laid down procedures.
The most noised substance in the petition is that of Hon. Emeka Nnamani submitting fake particulars to INEC, the noise it created made AFN to position a reporter on the cross examination day of Hon.Emeka Nnamani so that we get live facts during the cross examination, but our reporter’s report revealed that the SAN cross examining Hon. Emeka Nnamani did not at anytime question the Honorable in that line, which clearly shows that the petitioner have no hold on that. After more enquire, we discovered that the University of Portharcourt have actually written the tribunal distancing themselves from the earlier letter which purportedly declared Hon. Emeka Nnamani’s result fake.
It is true that every election candidate have a right to petition the tribunal , but it is also true that one needs to study his or her peculiar case before rushing to the tribunal because this case so far seems to be another legal academic exercise which may end fruitless for the petitioner, but increase the knowledge base of the lawyers involved in the proceeding.
Source: AFN
