By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
For Ebonyi State Governor, David Nweze Umahi, it is a case of one bad luck too many as he may be heading for prison if a provision of the 2022 electoral act is invoked against him, for attempting to contest election primaries for two different times in one season.
This is even as his bid to move to the Senate after failing to secure the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential ticket
was again cut down like a tree on Friday by a Federal High Court sitting in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi state capital.
The honourable court was emphatic in telling Umahi that he was not eligible to be the candidate for Senate seat of Ebonyi South Senatorial zone which he pitched for, shortly after the failed presidential primaries, 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 (INEC) 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.
Senatorial aspirant Agom-Eze had come second in the primaries 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 one Roy Nweze Umahi, who had dragged the INEC to the court in Abakaliki, to compel it 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Nweze had argued that the governor’s name should be recognised by INEC,since the previous owner of the mandate had withdrawn for the governor, a plea the court had no equivocation to dismiss on the ground that the governor’s name was not in the original ballot.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 primaries, 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 to for mer 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.
