Appeal Court Sacks C-River North Senator, Stephen Odey
- Declares Hon Jarigbe Senator-elect
BY UBON EKANEM, CALABAR – The Court of Appeal Tribunal sitting in Calabar has declared Hon Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe as the rightful winner of the Cross River North senatorial election.
By this ruling, the Court has effectively sacked from office Senator Stephen Odey, who is currently occupying the seat at the National Assembly (NASS).
In declaring Hon Jarigbe as the duly elected senator for the Zone on Friday, July 30, 2021, the Appeal Court said he remains the lawful candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the by-election held on December 5, 2020, for the vacant seat
Similarly, the three-man Appeal Panel, headed by Justice Chioma I. Nwosu, also invalidated the Certificate of Return earlier issued to Steven Odey by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The Court, therefore, directed that the certificate be withdrawn and reissued to Jerigbe as the duly-elected lawmaker.
Recalled that the trio of Senator Steven Odey, Joe Agi (SAN), and Agom Jarigbe had all approached the Appeal Court to challenge the Election Tribunal judgment of June 18, 2021, affirming Odey as the winner of the December polls.
While the duo of Odey and Jarigbe are members of PDP, Agi was the All Progressives Congress (APC) flag-bearer for the by-election.
Despite being favoured by the Tribunal’s ruling, Odey had approached the Court of Appeal protesting that there were errors in the judgment relating to alleged submission of false information to aid his candidature.
For Jarigbe, the Appellate Court was asked “to determine the rightful candidate of the PDP in the by-election.”
Aside seeking the Court’s relief to declare him as the duly nominated and sponsored candidate in the by-election, Jerigbe also sought a declaration that the certificate of return issued Odey is a nullity.
On his part, the APC flag-bearer, Abi presented 10 grounds for challenging the Tribunal’s judgment.
He averred, among others, that the tribunal “wrongly held that the grounds of the petition were pre-election matter, without taking into cognizance the decisions of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal in the following cases which were indeed brought to the attention of the Tribunal by the Appellants, Viz: PDP V. INEC (2014) 17 NWLR (Pt. 1437), FALEKE V. INEC (2016) 8 NWLR (Pt. 1543) and APC V. OHARISI (2019) LPELR – 48924 (CA).”
He further averred Tribunal judges misdirected themselves in law by holding that “We did not find where the Court nullified the Certificate of Return to the 1st Respondent (Odey)”.
