The National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal in Awka, Anambra State, has dismissed the petition of Stella Oduah of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) challenging the victory of Tony Nwoye of Labour Party (LP) in the 25 February senatorial election.
Mr Nwoye had polled 94,779 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Mrs Oduah of the PDP, who scored 50,146 votes, according to the result of the election declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
But Mrs Oduah and her party, the PDP, in a consolidated petition, challenged Mr Nwoye’s election as a senator representing Anambra North District.
Judgement
Delivering judgement on Wednesday, a three-person panel of judges unanimously dismissed Mrs Oduah’s petition and that of the PDP for lack of merit and affirmed the election of Mr Nwoye.
Stella Oduah at a glance
Mrs Oduah represented the district at the ninth Senate.
First elected in 2015 on the platform of the PDP, she had spent eight years in the Senate.
She was re-elected to the Senate in 2019. In August 2021, Mrs Oduah defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from the PDP following a crisis in the APC.
The senator re-joined the PDP in April 2022, about eight months later, saying she had returned to where she was “highly regarded.”