Soludo, Oye Out As Court Declares Umeoji APGA Standard Bearer

The fight for the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) governorship ticket and chairmanship has swung back in favor of Hon. Chukwuma Umeoji and Chief Jude Okeke, who were both recognized by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

This comes after the High Court of Owerri yesterday dismissed a new court action brought by Victor Oye to stop Chukwuma Umeoji and reaffirmed its earlier judgment declaring the Owerri Convention, which produced Jude Okeke as APGA Chairman, valid and ordering INEC to accept and continue to recognize and publish the name of Hon. Chukwuma Umeoji, who emerged as APGA Governorship candidate.

This decision came after Chief Victor Oye submitted an application for a stay of execution and leave to appeal, in which the court gave him leave to appeal but declined to grant him a stay of execution, instead opting to confirm its prior decision.

The court specifically stated that INEC cannot avoid its legal obligation to carry out, obey, and comply with the court’s orders declaring Umeoji candidate, and that INEC has a legal obligation to continue to carry out, obey, and comply with the extant, valid, and subsisting judgment of this Court delivered on July 28, 2021, which declared Umeoji candidate and ordered INEC to continue to recognize him and Jude Okeke pending the outcome of the appeal.

INEC is directly barred by today’s judgement from seeking to delete Umeoji’s name as an APGA candidate off its list, as it was rumored that it was under pressure to do so.

On August 10, 2021, the Court of Appeal Kano Division overturned another judgment of the Jigawa High Court, which held that Chief Jude Okeke is the National Chairman of the APGA and that only the governorship Congress held by him is valid, without making any orders as to who the party’s candidate should be.

The Kano Appeal Court did not go into detail about who should be the party’s candidate, between Prof. Charles Soludo and Hon. Chukwuma Umeoji, in a contentious decision that reversed their earlier ruling that the appeal was statute-barred because it was filed before the election, but still declared the judgment null and void for lack of fair hearing and jurisdiction without making any consequential decisions.