The appellate court, in a unanimous decision dismissed Sekibo’s appeal challenging the judgment of the Tribunal which sacked him as Senator representing Rivers East Senatorial District of Rivers State and ordered that he be replaced by Andrew Uchendu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The Appellate Court held in the judgment that Sekibo’s appeal lacks merit as it did not show any reason why the decision of the lower court, which sacked him from the Senate should be set aside.
The three-man panel of judges held that the senator only presented his closing remarks at the end of the hearing at the tribunal and added that, he did not challenge the decision reached by the tribunal.
In another judgement also delivered by the court yesterday, the same panel upheld the election of APC’s Magnus Abe as Senator representing Rivers South-East Senatorial District.
The court affirmed the judgment of the legislative election tribunal delivered on June 27, 2017 and dismissed the appeal by Olaka Nwogu of the PDP, on the grounds that it was without merit.
Recalled that the Tribunal had, in June 2017 nullified Sekibo’s victory.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had declared Sekibo winner of the election conducted in Rivers East Senatorial District.
But, the tribunal ordered INEC to withdraw the certificate of return from Sekibo and give it to Andrew Uchendu, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the election.
The electoral body had in December declared 93,098 votes for Sekibo to defeat Uchendu, who the commission had said scored 34,193 votes.
But the tribunal found that Uchendu had actually defeated Sekibo by scoring 126, 160 against the PDP candidate who scored 84,000 votes, adding that, results on Form EC8A in Ikwerre and Emuoha Local Government Areas and Ward Six of Okrika LGA and parts of Obio/Akpor LGA were ignored by INEC.
Sekibo had served two terms in the Senate. He was first elected in 2007 after serving a term in the House of Representatives between 2003 to 2007.
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