The Supreme Court ruled today that Mr. Jonathan Chijioke Edeoga is the authentic Labour Party governorship candidate for Enugu State.
With this ruling, the 11 March governorship battle is among Edeoga, Peter Mbah (PDP) and candidates of APC and APGA.
In a unanimous ruling read by Justice Roseline Kekere-Ekun, the justices adopted the position of the Federal Court of Appeal that party challenger, Capt. Everest Nnaji, has no authority to institute the case.
The justices agreed with the Appeal judgement that Nnaji has no locus standi since he did not participate in the primaries that produced the candidate.
The justices said it was difficult for Nnaji to satisfy them that he was the duly nominated candidate in an election that he did not participate.
They therefore described the appeal as dead on arrival.
The decision, according to legal experts spoken to by Enugu Metro, did not factor Nnaji’s position. The argument, they said, was that Labour Party did not allow Nnaji to contest the party primary after admitting him as a member, collecting governorship nomination fees, issuing and formally accepting his governorship nomination form.
Implications of the ruling
With this ruling that Edeoga is the authentic Labour candidate, the stage is finally set for a titanic battle.
The battle is between Enugu North and Enugu East Senatorial Districts. It is also positioned as a payback to Enugu East and West for alleged political marginalization of the North.
In the coming battle, the northern district backs Isi Uzo-born Edeoga, who was unceremoniously dumped by Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.
The Labour candidate was previously promoted as the Governor’s favourite to win the PDP primaries.
The alleged attempt to impose him on the party riled not a few political stalwarts who grumbled aloud that the Governor was planning to transfer power to a member of his family.
Edeoga happens to be the governor’s first cousin. Like a cat with nine lives, he survived the onslaught and will keep the governorship in the family if he wins the 11 March elections.
Stakeholders from Nkanu challenged his candidacy principally because he comes from Isi Uzo which culturally identifies as Nsukka – where the current governor comes from. His case was further compounded by powermongers from the Northern District who openly boasted that Nsukka intends to keep the governorship through their Isi Uzo cousin.
First, and too the North, electing Edeoga as the governor will therefore be sweet revenge to Nkanu people for annexing and holding Isi Uzo as a political hostage.
Isi Uzo was forcibly gerrymandered to Enugu East by Nkanu stakeholders. That decision gave Nkanu the population they needed to become a senatorial zone without fairly sharing the spoils of the annexation.
Second, it will be a pay back to Governor Ugwuanyi who is alleged to be a “betrayer to the Nsukka cause.” The Northern District has already served a humiliating defeat to him on Saturday when he lost a bid to go to Senate.
Enugu voters are hard put deciding on who to vote for between the two on 11 March. This is because both Edeoga and Mbah are mild mannered gentlemen who served as members of kitchen cabinet for unpopular governments in Enugu.
Edeoga has been a key player in the Ugwuanyi administration, holding two strategic positions in the Cabinet. He was Commissioner for Local Government in the governor’s first tenure and moved to Environment Ministry in the second.
Mbah also held key positions in the fearsome administration of Senator Chimaroke Nnamani. He was the Chief of Staff to the governor and was later moved to the Ministry of Finance as Commissioner.
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