Road block as court disqualifies Umahi, halts his senatorial bid

● Ebonyi gov risks two years jail term

Ebonyi State Governor, Dsve Umahi, may be heading for prison if a provision of the 2022 electoral act is invoked against him, for attempting to contest primary elections twice for two different pisitions in one poll season.

This is as even his bid to move to the Senate was truncated on Friday by a Federal High Court in Abakaliki, the state capital.

The governor, enjoys immunity which shields him from being prosecuted for criminal offences, which is the reason he may not be standing in the dock to explain his moves to break the law, for showing interest in Senate after a failed bid to clinch the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC), for the 2023 election.

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Regardless, the court was emphatic in telling him that that he was not eligible to be the Senatorial candidate for Ebonyi South.

He had jostled for the senate shortly after the failed presidential primary poll, where he was roundly defeated by National Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu.

The court after dismissing Umahi’s bid to get judicial relief after the Independent National Electoral Commission omitted his name in the list it published recently, handed the ticket to Ann Agom-Eze, based on the withdrawal of the governor’s younger brother, Austin Umahi.

Agom-Eze had come second in the primary poll where the younger Umahi emerged victorious for the Ebonyi South Zone senatorial election, making her the next option after Umahi’s withdrawal ostensibly to allow the governor pick the ticket as a replacement, which the electoral law does not permit.

Spirited efforts by Roy Nweze Umahi, who had dragged the INEC through court in Abakaliki, to compel it to recognise the governor as the authentic senatorial candidate failed woefully, after Agom-Eze, on Tuesday, approached the same court to ask that she be joined in the matter as an interested party.

Nweze had argued that the governor’s name should be recognised by INEC, since the previous owner of the mandate had withdrawn for the governor, a plea the courr dismissed on the grounds that the governor’s name was not on the original ballot.

Justice Fatun Riman, while dismissing the matter, cited section 115 of the Electoral Act 2022, saying the governor was not an aspirant and could not participate in the election or pre-election matters of the APC as regards the primarybpoll, which held on the 28th day of May, 2022.

Relying on the section of the law, he stressed that the governor neither procured forms for nor participated in the election, nor could he now claim any right based on the primary election.

The latest development is coming on the heels of a similar treatment meted oit to a former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, with Mike Igini, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), explaining that what Umahi tried to do, could earn him jail term, as politicians who procured multiple forms were criminals and risked two years imprisonment.

Agom-Eze, through her lawyer, Nwonu Nnaemeka, said his team’s argument was its client, upon the withdrawal of Austin Umahi from the primary, should claim all her rights as regards the exercise, being the second runner-up.