Peoples Progressive Party has petitioned Election Tribunal in Rivers state, asking for the gubernatorial election of March 9 to be upturned because its governorship candidate was not included in ballot papers by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Barr. Chibuzor Ezike, PPP National Legal Adviser, protested the exclusion despite a subsisting judgement ordering INEC to include the candidates for the elections.
In the statement made available to theportcitynews, Barr. Ezike stated that after the nomination of its governorship candidates for the March 9 election, it was not allowed to submit names of nominated candidates, which led the party to drag INEC to court before the election.
“The Court delivered final judgement days before the scheduled election and ordered INEC to include our candidates to avoid exclusion”.
“The judgement was served on INEC before the March 9 election but surprisingly, INEC went ahead in disobedience of the valid judgment and conducted the election in Kano and Rivers, excluding PPP candidates.
“This act has put the elections in those two states in legal jeopardy with a looming possibility of nullification to pave way for fresh governorship election, a situation that could have been avoided.
“The petition filing process, which was concluded today at the tribunal and already set for hearing, has petition number EPT/KN/GOV/02/2019 for Kano and EPT/RS/GOV/01/2019 for Rivers.
“It is the first petition to have been filled challenging Governor Wike’s victory, while the PPP Kano petition is the second challenging Governor Ganduje’s victory.”
