Following the Supreme Court ruling which set aside the victories of Senators Andy Uba and Stella Uduah into the National Assemby, Chris Uba has advised both senators from Anambra State to vacate their seats.
Uba, brother of Andy Uba, who was the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the election before he was replaced following a decision by the Court of Appeal which set aside the decision of the lower court advised his brother and Stella Oduah to accept their fate and honourably step down.
Speaking with newsmen in Abuja, Uba berated his brother and Oduah for issuing statements that the Supreme Court judgment did not affect them because they were not a party to the suit.
He expressed shock that both Chris and Uduo who should be conversant with the laws of the land could be sending misleading statements regarding their true status after the Supreme Court judgment which sacked.
According to The Nation he said: “The time for substitution had passed and we were busy doing our campaigns when, one week to the election, the Andy Uba faction went to the Court of Appeal and set aside the judgement of the High Court.
“Based on that, they took the judgement to INEC and their names were used to substitute our own. We cried foul then, insisting we were not party to the suit but INEC insisted that our names were initially published based on an earlier court order and that we should go on appeal.
“We appealed to the Supreme Court and the verdict on Friday clearly vindicated our position as the Supreme Court set aside that judgement of the Court of Appeal, agreed with the judgement of the High Court and even granted all our five prayers.
“Now, they (Chris Uba and Oduah) went on air and issued press statements to deceive the public that the order from the Supreme Court did not affect them because they were not a party to the suit. The question is: when our names were removed by INEC and replaced with theirs, were we party to the suit?
“Now they are shouting and trying to misinterpret a clear judgment that has removed them and given us victory. They are just deceiving the public. We will demand for our certificates of return from INEC on Monday because the judgement is clear. We do not need to seek for any further clarifications.”
“When the whole exercise wanted to start, INEC wrote a letter to the PDP headquarters to avoid confusion, telling the PDP that the Ejike Oguebego exco was the one that it would recognise based on court order of a Federal High Court in Abuja.
“Unfortunately, the PDP ignored that letter and, instead, set up a two-man caretaker committee to come to Anambra State to conduct primaries. Of course, there was no room for that caretaker committee to operate in the state because the key to conducting the primaries is the 3-man delegates from the 326 wards in the state.
“It was obvious that without the state exco, the caretaker committee cannot be functional because the people who are supposed to organise the state congress were expected to liaise with the state chairman. From there, they would set up a committee to go to all the wards where the delegates would emerge from for electing candidates into the National and state assemblies.
“So when they set up this caretaker, the Ejike Oguebego exco went to court and got a judgement recognising it as the right exco therefore making null and void the caretaker committee.
“The judgment also instructed INEC and the PDP to conduct all the electioneering exercise under the Ejike Oguebego exco including all the candidates who were participating. So, we obeyed the court order and did our primaries as instructed. The exercise was duly monitored by INEC and all the relevant papers were signed.”
