Imo North: As parties await S/Court, High Court declares Ararume winner

A  Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to declare Chief Ifeanyi Ararume as winner of the December 5, 2020, bye-election for the Imo North Senatorial District of Imo state.

 Handing down the ruling, Justice Taiwo Oladipupo Taiwo declared Ararume as  the authentic candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the election as at today and should be declared winner of that election.

The judge also ordered the electoral body to issue Certificate of Return to Ararume within 72 hours from the delivery of the judgment for him to be formally inaugurated by the President of the Senate. 

Justice Taiiwo dismissed the preliminary objection filed by the APC and one Chukwuma Francis Ibezim challenging the jurisdiction of the court to entertain Ararume’s suit.

The court held  that the objection lacked merit because Ibezim, being purported by APC as its candidate in the bye-election had been disqualified by a Federal High Court and later Court of Appeal for supplying false information to INEC to secure clearance for participation in the election. 

The judge earlier in a ruling dismissed Ibezim’s application seeking a stay of the judgment, pending the hearing and determination of the suit before the Supreme Court.

Justice Taiwo, who described the application as “an attempt to arrest the judgment,” dismissed it for lacking in merit.

 Ararume had, through his counsel, Ahmed Raji (SAN), told Justice Taiwo to invoke the judgements of a Federal High Court and that of Appeal Court to disqualify Ibezim and declare him as the rightful candidate for APC. 

Raji submitted that the judgements of the High Court and later the Court of Appeal had conclusively disqualified Ibezim and cannot claim to be an aspirant or candidate in the Imo North Senatorial election. 

Opposing Ararume’s suit, APC had told the court that it never fielded Ararume for the senatorial bye-election for  held December last year. 

The party had insisted that Ararume lacked the locus standi to lay claim to the candidacy because he did not even come second in the primary election conducted for candidate nomination  and urged the court to dismiss his suit. 

 Consequent upon this, Ararume dragged the INEC, APC and Ibezim before the Federal High Court praying for an order to compel INEC to recognise him as an APC senatorial candidate in the election won by the party.

He claimed that Ibezim, having been disqualified by a Federal High Court on account of supplying false information to INEC to secure clearance and the disqualification having been upheld by the Court of Appeal in Abuja, had knocked off Ibezim from laying any claim to the outcome of the bye-election.

 But, the APC, through its counsel, Osho Daudu, asked the court to discountenance Ararume’s claims, insisting that his name was never forwarded to INEC but that of  Ibezim. 

 The counsel submitted that a Federal High Court judgement delivered in Owerri, Imo state, which erroneously conferred locus on Ararume had been voided by Supreme Court and cannot confer any advantage on the plaintiff. 

 And in a counter argument, Ibezim’s counsel, Emma Osayomi,  said his client had approached the Supreme Court to challenge his disqualification on account of variation in his name. 

The counsel argued that as at the Election Day, the name of his client was on the INEC list and not that of Ararume and urged the court to dismiss Ararume’s claims and hold that Chukwuemeka Francis remains the APC candidate.

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