A Federal High Court in Awka has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to publish the name of Valentine Ozigbo as the candidate of the PDP for the November 6 Anambra state governorship election.
Recall that Ozigbo’s name and that of the All Progressives Grand Alliance APGA, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, was missing from the list of candidates scheduled for the election.
The name of the candidate for the All Progressives Congress (APC) Andy Uba, was contained in the list of cleared candidates released by the commission.
However, Ozigbo had approached a Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in Maitama seeking an order restraining the PDP from “tampering” with his name as the authentic candidate.
He also sought an order “mandating” INEC to publish his name as the party’s candidate.
However, the court refused all the orders sort and ordered the electoral commission not to publish the name of any candidate for the PDP pending the determination of the motion on notice.
Consequently, INEC excluded the candidate of the PDP from the list of cleared candidates for the poll.
But in a fresh order issued on Monday, the judge in Awka, Hyeladzira Nganjiwa, asked the electoral commission to publish Ozigbo’s name as PDP’s candidate, following the withdrawal of the suit at the FCT high court.
This article was originally published on Nigeria News