By Dennis Agbo

ABAKALIKI—Following last Friday’s Enugu Appeal Court nullification of Senator Julius Ucha’s election as the duly elected candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2007 poll, mixed reactions have continued to trail the judgment, with some groups calling on the sacked senator to now contest for Ebonyi State’s governorship in 2011.

Senator Ucha, Chairman, Senator Committee on Works, representing Ebonyi Central senatorial district, was asked by the court to vacate his seat in the senate for Dr. Emmanuel Onwe who it adjudged was the duly elected person as PDP’s candidate in the election.

A cross section of the people in Abakaliki interviewed by Vanguard weekend indicated a favourable disposition to the judgement, maintaining that Dr. Emmanuel Onwe was “actually” the true candidate of the PDP before he was wrongly substituted with Senator Ucha after Ucha failed to get the governorship nomination of the party.

Other groups, however, feel that the state government, under Chief Martin Elechi, was instrumental to the sack of Senator Ucha, citing fractured rapport between the government and Senator Ucha, especially on the Ezza/Ezillo communal war which the government accused Ucha of masterminding.