2023: Court Judgment Has Boosted Umahi’s Presidential Chances – Orji
The chances of Ebonyi State Governor Dave Umahi to emerge the Nigerian president in 2023 may have been enhanced by the recent judgment of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, which ordered his sack as governor as well as his deputy and some lawmakers in the state over their defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Commissioner for Information in the state, Uchenna Orji, said this during an interaction with a select group of journalists in Abuja yesterday, describing the development as a distraction that has turned out to be a “blessing in disguise”.
Recall that the Federal High Court in Abuja on March 8 ordered Governor Dave Umahi and his deputy, Eric Igwe, to vacate their seats as the sitting governor and deputy respectively, on grounds that PDP won the election in March 2019 and not the candidates.
Citing section 221 of the constitution, Justice Inyang Ekwo ordered the PDP to immediately send names of replacements to INEC so that fresh elections can be conducted. The court held that having defected to the APC, Governor Umahi, and his deputy cannot transfer the mandate of the PDP to the APC.
Speaking further on the issues, Orji said the judgment of the Federal High is inconsistent with the constitution and the Electoral Act and therefore cannot stand.
He added that the governor will challenge the matter up to the Supreme Court while still being the Governor of the state. He also pointed out that the state High Court had earlier delivered judgment to the effect that the Governor and his deputy committed no offence by defecting to the APC.
“I want to day that so far so good, the High Court in Ebonyi state looking at the propriety of the assertion that once a governor defects to another party that he loses his seat, the state High court in its judgment, declared that under the constitution and under extant laws, there is no provision that criminalizes or makes it an offence that if you move to another party as governor or deputy that you must vacate your office.
“Therefore, the court directed that the governor has offended no constitution and therefore is the governor of the state irrespective of the fact that he moved to another political party.
“Few days later, the Federal High Court which has coordinated jurisdiction with the high court made a different judgment that is inconsistent with the judgment of its brother court who is materially even a senior judge to him. So, it became an issue of electing the court judgment to obey, so we elected to obey the judgment of the state high court that came in time and determined the issues.”
He said further that this legal distraction is more political, stressing that the opposition wants to use it to ambush the governor and distract and possibly use extra legal means to oust him.
“The distraction is rather a blessing in disguise no matter its inconvenience because many people who never knew the governor before, who never thought of him being a credible candidate to contest the Presidential election, are beginning t o appreciate the governor. 99% of the discussion is in favour of Governor Umahi.
“So, it has thrown his popularity up, the opponents have wittingly or unwittingly projected the governor and everybody has come to see that he has got a lot of track records. This has made those in APC know that this man is being haunted because of his personality,” he added.
