The Independent National Electoral Commission has named Valentine Ozigbo as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the Anambra governorship election.

Mr Ozigbo’s had earlier been excluded from published list of gubernatorial candidates for the November 6 election due to litigation.
But INEC spokesman, Festus Okoye, in a statement Thursday evening, said the legal hurdle has now been cleared.

“The Court has ordered the Commission to recognise and publish the name of Mr Valentine Ozigbo as the Governorship candidate.

Earlier, the party had substituted its Deputy Governorship candidate within the deadline provided by law,” the statement said. 

In July, the electoral body had released a list of candidates, with no candidates from the PDP.  

A State High Court in Akwa had ordered the electoral body to publish Ugochukwu Uba as the PDP candidate for the guber polls.https://gazettengr.com/anambra-election-court-orders-inec-to-make-uba-pdp-candidate/

The presiding judge, Obiora Nwabunike, gave the order in his judgment on the matter instituted by Mr Uba, against INEC, PDP, and Valentine Ozigbo, as defendants.

Mr Uba emerged from a parallel primary not recognised by the party’s national body.

Mr Ozigbo on the other hand won the PDP ticket in the primary organised by the national headquarters of the party.

To establish his mandate, Mr Ozigbo then filed an ex parte application at the Court of Appeal.

His appeal was granted as the appellate court, in a ruling delivered by President of the Court of Appeal, Monica Dongban-Mensem set aside the ruling of the Awka court.

Ms Dongban-Mensem also awarded N10 million damages in favour of the plaintiff as cost of litigation.