The All Progressives Congress, APC has called for the immediate release of the Labour Party, LP candidate for Enugu State House of Assembly, Bright Ngene, who has been jailed over his involvement in a contentious community matter.
The Enugu State Chairman of APC, Ugochukwu Agballa made the call while addressing newsmen at the weekend.
Agballa blamed the ruling party in Enugu state, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP for their role in the sentencing of Bright Ngene.
According to Agballa, “We’re here in respect of Bright Ngene, the presumed winner of the 2023 House of Assembly election for Enugu South Urban 1 state constituency of Enugu State.
“Bright Ngene was the Labour Party candidate who won the election. But today, he’s serving a seven-year jail term because he is trying to recover his mandate, which was truncated by a tribunal judgement which declared his election inconclusive.
“We’re here in solidarity with him because injustice to one is injustice to all. We’re here on the mandate of the Honourable Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Uche Nnaji, who is the leader of our party in Enugu State. Nnaji has asked me to come to meet with Hon. Ngene personally to find out the true position of things.
“We all know what is happening in Enugu State that there’s a plan by the ruling PDP cabal in Enugu State to stop the LP candidate from getting back his mandate given to him by the people of Enugu South Urban state constituency.
“He was the leading candidate by over 4000 votes in an election that the Court of Appeal ordered a reelection in only eight polling units
“He was leading with 5200 votes while his closest rival had about 2000 votes. The votes to be contested for is 4000.
“But the PDP government in Enugu State led by Governor Peter Mbah is using every power at their disposal to crush this man and to silence him and forcibly take away his mandate
“We’re here in solidarity with him. I’m not just here as the Chairman of the APC in Enugu State, I’m here as a major stakeholder in the Enugu project because injustice to one is injustice to all.
“I’m here with the backing of the Minister, Uche Nnaji, who is solidly behind the restoration of the mandate given freely to Hon.Bright Ngene by the people of Enugu State Urban state constituency.
“We’re going to do anything within our power to ensure that Ngene is free.
“The controversial judgment by Magistrate D. D. Onwu is not acceptable to us. We’re going to take that magistrate to the National Judicial Council .NJC.
“We’re going to send our lawyers to go to the court to fight for his bail
“We heard reports from the lawyer that his address was not accepted by the magistrate and that a judgement was given without his legal address
“This is against the precedence of law in the country. It’s against the rules of the High Court. It’s against the rules of natural justice
“We’re going to do everything to make sure that justice is done in this matter and that whoever, no matter how highly placed, has his hands in this miscarriage of justice, will be brought to justice because nobody is above the law, including judicial officers and INEC officials
“We’re going to take this matter to President Tinubu because he swore an oath to protect the right of every Nigerian irrespective of political party
“We’re presenting this first to the zonal leadership of our party.
“We can’t allow Abacha to rise again in Enugu State. What is going on now is even worse than what went on under Chimaroke Nnamani’s regime.
“During Nnamani’s regime, nobody who won election was jailed for demanding for the restoration of his mandate.
“We’re going to make a report to the national chairman of INEC regarding this because three times, INEC had called out the people of Enugu South Urban for an election they had no intention to conduct.
“We will not accept that the election should hold behind Ngene because you cannot barb a man in his absence’. Agballa explained.
Recall that an Enugu South Magistrate Court had sentenced the LP candidate for Enugu South Urban Constituency, Bright Ngene alongside two others over a N15m development fund case involving his community.
In the 2023 general election, Ngene defeated the Peoples Democratic Party candidate.
The PDP, however, challenged Ngene’s victory and the election petition tribunal declared the election inconclusive, and a rerun was ordered in eight polling units.
But the magistrate court ruled that Ngene should be incarcerated for seven years.
Confidence Okwuchi
