From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
An election observer and the National Coordinator, Peoples Right and Justice, Barr. Victor Giwa, has said that only the chances of a repeat of Imo State victory through the Supreme Court could propel the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Andy Uba, to seek legal redress over the outcome of the November 6, Anambra State governorship election.
He made the claim on Thursday in Abuja on the sidelines of the event to reapprais the poll organized by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for accredited participating observer groups.
Responding to the speculated plans by the APC governorship candidate to head to court, he said:
“The right to go to court is an exclusive right of any party but what is more important is the final outcome of the legal action.
“You know the attitude of the politicians now and looking at the background of the Imo State governorship election, they believe that they can win through the court if they can’t win through the poll. They feel that the judgement may favour them in one way or the other.
“So, going to court for them does not depend on whether they have valid grounds or exclusive right but because of what happened in Imo which now provides everybody with two windows to win elections through the court or the poll,” he said.
Meanwhile, INEC has declared that the experiences of accredited organizations that observed the November 6 governorship election in Anambra State are vital knowledge bank to guide the commission in future elections.
National Commissioner and Chairman Election and Party Monitoring Committee (EPMC), Prof. Kunle Ajayi, made the observation the event.
Ajayi further announced that the forum provides the Commission with the opportunity to engage observers and draw their experiences during the election, interact and clarify grey areas of the exercise without prejudice to the comprehensive report the Commission still expects from them.
In his contribution, the Director General of The Electoral Institute (TEI), Dr Sa’ad Umar Idris, said that the work of the observer groups are critical to entire Electoral process, especially as the commission prepare for 2023 general election.
“As you are aware is one of the major policies of the Commission is that after every elections, be it small or big, we usually gets feedback, through the engagement of stakeholders like Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), security agencies, media, basically to get feedback and assessment of what happened in the field.
“Of course, the Election/Party Monitoring Committee has organized this at the Institute along the same lines, just to get feedback from Observer groups. What were their observations? What were their challenges in the field. And of course, we are all aware, we are preparing the FCT Council elections thereafter around June, Ekiti governorship comes up, then followed by Osun and again, the mother of all 2023.
“So, it is very critical more than any other time for us to really get feedback from all these stakeholders. And that is what we are doing,” he explained.