My mandate still intact as senator-elect, says Nwaoboshi

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta Affairs, Peter Nwaoboshi, whose re-election was quashed by the court on Wednesday, has said that his mandate remains intact.

Nwaoboshi, at a press conference yesterday in Abuja, noted that contrary to report, no court sacked him as he was no longer the candidate of a political party but a senator-elect with certificate of return.

An Abuja Division of the Federal High Court had on Wednesday sacked Nwaoboshi, as the senator-elect for Delta North Senatorial District.

Justice Ahmed Mohammed gave the order while delivering judgment in a suit filed by Mr. Ned Nwoko challenging the election of Nwaoboshi as the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party in the primaries of the party held in Delta.

The court held that Nwaoboshi, a serving senator, was not the duly elected candidate of the PDP in the primary election.

Justice Mohammed ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission to publish the name of Nwoko as PDP candidate, having established before the court that he scored the highest number of votes in the said primary election.

But Nwaoboshi, at the press briefing, said he had already filed a notice of appeal to challenge the ruling of Justice Mohammed.

The Delta North senator stated that apart from filing his notice of appeal, he has taken other steps to curtail what he described as “judicial rascality in the country.”

He said the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) sponsored him “and my party has come to court to say that I am its candidate.”

He said: “I was not sacked and there was no order that said INEC should withdraw my certificate of return.”

Nwaoboshi said that part of ground of his appeal was that the learned trial judge erred in law when he held that the suit was not caught by the 14 days rule in Section 285 (9) Fourth Alteration to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).

He noted that the primary election, subject matter of the suit, was conducted on October 2, 2018 and the 14 days’ time allowed started running on the same October 2, 2018 when the primary election took place.

He said that another ground of appeal is that the learned trial judge erred in law when he held that he had jurisdiction to entertain the suit despite same being filed on December 11, 2018 because the first respondent had earlier filed a suit before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, which he withdrew and was truck out on December 10, 2018.

He noted that “the self same suit withdrawn before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, was withdrawn because it was caught by the same 14 days rule in view of Section 285 (9) Fourth Alteration to the Constitution, 1999 (as amended).