The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Tuesday, sacked Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State and his Deputy, Dr Eric Kelechi Igwe, following their defection from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC.<\/p>\n
The court, in a judgement that was delivered by Justice Inyang Ekwo, held that the total number of 393, 042 votes governor Umahi secured during the March 9, 2019 governorship election in Ebonyi state, belonged to the PDP and same could not be legally transferred to the APC.<\/p>\n
According to the court, having defected to the APC, both Umahi and his deputy, not only jettisoned the PDP, but also the votes that belonged to it.<\/p>\n
It held that going by the outcome of the governorship election, the office of the governor and deputy governor in Ebonyi state, \u201cbelong to the Plaintiff and no other political party\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no constitutional provision that made the ballot transferrable from one party to the other\u201d.<\/p>\n
It held that the PDP is bound to retain the votes and mandate that was given to it by electorates in Ebonyi state, as both governor Umahi and his Deputy could not validly transfer same to APC.<\/p>\n
The court, therefore, ordered both Umahi and Igwe to immediately vacate their positions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Tuesday, sacked Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State and his Deputy, Dr Eric Kelechi Igwe, following their defection from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC. The court, in a judgement that was delivered by Justice Inyang Ekwo, held that the total…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n