Enugu East Senatorial Seat: Chimaroke Nnamani Loses to LP Candidate, Fined N.5m

By Adesina Soyooye

A-two term Senator, Dr Chimaroke Nnamani, has lost his bid to go back to the Senate. Nnamani, a Medical Doctor-turned politician, was also a Peoples Democratic Party  two-term Governor of Enugu State.

He lost the Senatorial election in the 2023 General Election to Kelvin Chukwu of the Labour Party. Chukwu replaced his elder brother, a Lawyer, who was the LP Candidate, but was gruesomely  murdered a few days to the Election.

Chukwu went on to defeat Nnamani for the Enugu East Senatorial seat by scoring 69,000 votes to Nnamani’s 49,000 votes.

Dissatisfied with his loss,  Nnamani approached the Enugu State Senatorial Election Petition Tribunal and asked that he be either declared the winner or have the election cancelled.

But the three-man panel of Judges headed by the Honourable Justice  Nusirat  Umar, dismissed Nnamani’s petition on all grounds, and upheld Chukwu’s election.

The Panel also awarded the sum of N500,000 against Chimaroke in favour of Chukwu, LP and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

For the records, Nnamani has long been expelled from the PDP for alleged anti-party activities, chief amongst them:  his public support for the then Presidential Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC,  Bola Tinubu, against his Party’s Candidate, Atiku Abubakar.