Politics
AARON Uzodike, a lawmaker-elect in Abia House of Assembly, has appealed to the Speaker, Mr Emmanuel Emeruwa, to obey the Appeal Court judgement to inaugurate him into the 8th Assembly.
Uzodike, who made the appeal while speaking with journalists on Saturday, also urged Gov. Alex Otti to prevail on the Speaker to do the needful without further delay.
He said that the Appeal Court in Lagos, had delivered a judgement in his favour on Nov. 27, 2023 as the true winner of 2023 House of Assembly Election for Aba North.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Uzodike was a member of the 7th Assembly for Aba North from 2019 to 2023.
He had contested his re-election in the 2023 elections on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
But the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Mr Destiny Nwagwu of the Labour Party (LP) as winner and was returned to the House.
Subsequently, Uzodike had gone to court to challenge the mandate
The 24-member state constituency, is under the leadership of LP as the Speaker, Deputy Speaker and the Majority Leader with members of the party.
However, Uzodike told journalists that INEC complied with the appeal court order by withdrawing the Certificate of Return from Nwagwu.
He said that the election umpire issued him a Certificate of Return on Dec. 13, 2023 and invalidated that of Nwagwu.
Uzodike explained that on Dec. 14, he submitted all the documents, including the Certified True Copy of the judgement, the Certificate of Return and a letter from INEC informing the Clerk of his certificate and invalidating that of Nwagwu.
“I did that with the expectation that the Speaker will do the needful immediately, unfortunately, he did not do that till date”.
The 24-member house, is under the leadership of LP as the Speaker, Deputy Speaker and the Majority Leader as members of the same party.
Uzodike continued : “The Speaker initially scheduled my inauguration for Jan. 18, 2024, after much pressure on him.
“Unfortunately, he sent me a message on that day the inauguration would no hold indefinitely.
“When I visited him in his office to know why, he told me it was an order from above.
“From Nov. 27 when the judgement was given to Jan. 18 when he initially scheduled the inauguration, there was no court order or any review of the judgement from the Appeal Court.”
The lawmaker-elect said that Nwagwu had subsequently filed a suit at the state High Court sitting at ObehIe in Ukwa West Local Government Area, on March 5.
He said that Nwagwu affirmed in that suit that he was no longer a member of the House, but was personally investigating his certificate.
According to him, the matter was dismissed on March 9, after four adjournments.
“As at today, there is nothing pending anywhere either in Abia or any other part of the world, stopping Mr Speaker from inaugurating me,” he said.(NAN)
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-April 28, 2024 @ 08:50 GMT|
Tags: Aaron Uzodike Gov. Alex Otti INEC Mr Destiny Nwagwu Mr Emmanuel Emeruwa
