Ogah Receives INEC Certificate Of Return As Abia Governor

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in Abia state  who came second at the 2015 general elections has received return certificate from the Independent National Electoral Commission following Monday’s sack of Okezie Ikpeazu, by a federal high court sitting in Abuja.
Justice Okon Abang, giving judgment on a suit filed by Ogah, agreed with the plaintiff that Ikpeazu evaded tax prior to his election, and as such was‎ not qualified to hold an elective office.

He ordered the removal of Ikpeazu and Abang also ordered INEC to withdraw the certificate of return it issued Ikpeazu‎, and re-award it to Ogah, who had received 103 votes to Ikpeazu’s 487 at the primary election.

Speaking while complying with the order on Thursday, Lawrence Nwuruku, the INEC national commissioner in charge of the south-east, said it was his duty to honour the court order, and INEC would do the same should the court order a reversal.

“The situation is that we are simply obeying the court order. The court said that we should issue him Certificate of Return with immediate effect, and that is what we have done,” he said.
“If the court tomorrow issues another order, we would obey the same. If court says we should issue the same certificate to another person, we will.
“I was the person who gave the Certificate of Return to Gov. Ikpeazu as he was declared winner. Now, the court has said otherwise. One thing we know is that we are not above the law and we cannot disobey the laws of the land.”

Justice Abang had ruled that on the account of fake tax returns during the primaries, Mr Ikpeazu, ab initio was never qualified to run in the PDP primaries as a governorship candidate. He consequently ordered the Chief Judge of the state to swear in Uche Ogah as the substantive Governor of Abia State.