CONSEQUENT upon the defection of Senator Uche Ekwunife to the All Progressives Congress (APC), former National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the party’s candidate for Anambra Central Senatorial District in the 2015 elections, Chief Victor Umeh, yesterday said it would be wrong and dangerous to allow improper candidates to take part in the court-ordered re-run election in the zone.

Umeh’s statement came against the backdrop of speculation that the Appeal Court’s position on the matter notwithstanding, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) could replace Ekwunife, who, until the nullification of her election, was the senator representing Anambra Central, with a ‘strange’ candidate.

Already, the APC has confirmed her membership of the party just as unfolding events point to her candidacy in place of APC’s Senator Chris Ngige, who though lost to Ekwunife in the March 2015 election, has been appointed Labour Minister by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

Speaking with journalists in Lagos, Umeh said the court could nullify the yet-to-be-scheduled election if unqualified candidates took part in it.

On the back of Umeh’s ‘petition,’ the Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu had on December 7, nullified Ekwunife’s victory in the March 28, 2015 election and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a fresh election within 90 days.

While INEC is yet to announce a date for the fresh poll, Umeh, who said he is ready and confident of winning, however advised the electoral body to ensure that all preparations comply with the provisions of the Constitution and Electoral Act.

According to the former APGA chairman, he is raising the issue because other parties in the contest — PDP and the APC — are making plans to conduct fresh primaries to nominate new candidates for the re-run, a move which he said was against the established law stipulating that only validly nominated candidates that took part in the nullified election should take part in the ordered fresh election.

Umeh’s party, the APGA, is the ruling party in Anambra State.
“I am ready for the election again but the important thing to consider at this time is the need to do everything according to the law,” he said.
“The previous election was nullified because somebody, who was not supposed to take part in the election took part after not been properly nominated by her party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

As we prepare to go for the ordered fresh election, it is important that all preparations must comply with the relevant laws and rules. If we go into an election, where improper candidates take part, it will expose the exercise to further nullification.”

He cited a 2009 judgment of the Supreme Court in the matter between Labour Party (LP) and INEC on whether the Court of Appeal was right in holding that the fresh election ordered to be held upon the nullification of the 2007 governorship election in Adamawa State is a re-run in which only the candidates who were validly nominated for the nullified poll could contest.
“Justice I.F. Ogbuagu, in a lead judgment on the matter, had ruled that since the said election, was void, commonsensically and in fact and in law, it is the same candidates in the aborted/nullified election that must go back to run in the fresh election as ordered by the tribunal which was affirmed by the Court of Appeal,” Umeh said.

He added that the current stage of the Anambra Central poll does not allow political parties in the contest to put forward new candidates to represent them just as he dismissed the argument that the court ordered fresh election.
“I have seen the PDP and APC pretending not to know what the law says about situations like this. That the word “fresh” was used does not connote a fresh exercise, including the process. It is crass ignorance of the law,” he said.