The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has dashed the hope of the candidate of the People Democratic Party (PDP) in Aniocha/Oshimili federal constituency, Delta state, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, to return to the House of Representatives as it has set aside the judgement of the state tribunal and pronounced Ngozi Okolie, the candidate of the Labour Party as the winner of the election.

The appellate court gave this verdict Thursday in favour of the candidate of the Labour party who had approached the court to challenge judgement of the national and state houses of assembly tribunal in Asaba which voided his declaration by the Independent National Electoral Commission as the winner of the February 25th general election.

Okolie, who was the underdog in the election pulled an upset on the ruling party, PDP by scoring 53,879 votes while Ndudi Elumelu, his closest rival only pulled 33,456 votes.

Dissatisfied with the outcome of the polls, Hon Elumelu filed a petition before the three-member panel of the tribunal, headed by A.Z. Mussa, with case number EPT/DL/HR/06/2023, argued that Mr Okolie’s nomination was not in tune with the relevant laws on the election.

Meanwhile, the Asaba-based tribunal agreed in its ruling, with Elumelu and disqualified the LP candidate on the ground that the party did not duly sponsor Mr Okolie because, at the time of the primary election that produced him, that he was not a member of the party.

Mr Okolie, through his lawyer Mahmud Magaji approached the appellate court to overturn the ruling of the tribunal, with the claim that he was duly nominated and sponsored by his party.

Faulting the tribunal’s ruling, the appeal court agreed with the appellant’s counsel, Mahmud Magaji, with the position that Okoli was duly nominated by the party.

The court of appeal also acknowledged that, as required by the constitution Okolie resigned his appointment as a special assistant (SSA) in the Delta state government before the election.

With the ruling from the court of appeal, Elumelu has now exhausted his efforts to be in the federal house of assembly, as the constitution only permits candidates vying for legislative positions to the court of appeal in the fights to claim their mandates.