Court dismisses suit seeking to disqualify Nnamani, as Ezeh loses again

Chimaraoke Nnamani

The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, Wednesday, dismissed a suit seeking to disqualify Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani as the validly nominated candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Enugu East Senatorial District.

The suit was brought by one Lawrence Ozoemena Ezeh, who, along with other contestants, was defeated by Nnamani in the PDP senatorial primary held on October 2, 2018.

The presiding judge, Justice Inyang Ekwo held that the suit was status-barred, having been commenced beyond the period allowed by law, ruling further that it was frivolous and lacked in merit.

Ezeh's quest for the senate had been dogged by insurmountable obstacles involving serial electoral and judicial defeats.

In the senatorial primary election, Nnamani had scored 601 votes to emerge winner, while Ezeh came second to the last with 25 votes.

After the defeat, however, Ezeh dashed to the All Progressives Party (APC) where he picked the senatorial ticket of the party in controversial circumstances.

Only two days to the February 21, 2019 National Assembly elections, the Federal High Court sitting in Enugu had nullified his purported candidacy, declaring that he was not properly nominated, and holding that Adaora Ogbu-Aguocha was the rightful candidate of the party.

Notwithstanding, INEC had curiously retained Ezeh's name as the APC candidate for the election.

In the senatorial election, Dr Chimaroke Nnamani polled a total of 128,843 votes to overwhelmingly defeat other contestants, including Ezeh, who came a distant second with 14,225 votes.

Barely two weeks later, , INEC struck out his name from the final list of senatorial candidates published on its website, citing a court order.

On his part, Dr. Nnamani has scored a string of judicial victories on his return path to the senate.

Amongst the litigations seeking to void his nomination and subsequent election, all to no avail, were the ones separately filed by one Chukwunonso Daniel Ogbe, and the outgoing senator for the district, Prince Gilbert Nnaji.