By  Ikechukwu Nnochiri

ABUJA – The Supreme Court, yesterday, declined to declare Senator Osita Izunaso as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party for Imo West Senatorial seat, just as it equally refused to stop the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, from recognizing Hope Uzodinma as the authentic candidate of the party for the said district.

Senator Izunaso had gone before the apex court with a view to stopping INEC from executing the judgment of an Appeal Court in Abuja which had directed the electoral body to publish the name of Uzodinma as the party’s candidate for Imo West senatorial district.

The appellate court gave the judgment after it over turned a judgment of an Abuja High Court which had, ab-initio, restrained INEC from accepting the name of Uzodinma on the ground that he was not eligible to contest the primary elections conducted in Imo State by the PDP, having been disqualified earlier by the party’s screening committee before the election was held on January 8.

The high court, presided over by Justice Abdul Kafarati, in its judgment delivered on January 28, handed the mandate to Izunaso, even as it went ahead and restrained the PDP from presenting Uzodinma to INEC as its candidate.