Tribunal Upholds Nwaoboshi’s Election as Senator

Tribunal Upholds Nwaoboshi’s Election as Senator

By Alex Enumah in Abuja

The National and State House of Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Asaba, the Delta State capital, on Saturday, upheld the election of Senator Peter Nwaoboshi as senator representing Delta North Senatorial District at the National Assembly.

The tribunal, in a unanimous decision, dismissed the petition filed by Doris Uboh of the All Progressives Congress (APC), for being statute barred and lacking in merit.

Nwaoboshi was the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 23 National Assembly Election in Delta State.

The Chairman of the three-man panel, Justice E.I. Ngene, in a judgment delivered, held that there was merit in the objection raised by Senator Nwaoboshi against the competence of the petition and jurisdiction of the tribunal to entertain it having been filed outside the time provided for by law..

Although, Uboh’s petition was struck out based on the preliminary objection raised by Senator Nwaoboshi, the tribunal went further to hear it on merit.

Justice Ngene said that the tribunal found that none of the allegations of malpractices made by the petitioner was substantiated or proved beyond any reasonable doubt.

The tribunal also found that the petition was vague, ambiguous and imprecise and thus lacked merit.

Uboh, who scored about 30,000 votes, had petitioned the tribunal and challenged the victory of Nwaoboshi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who polled over 180,000 votes at the election held on February 23, 2019.

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