A Federal High Court sitting in Kano, presided over by
Justice M N Yunusa has nullified the candidature of the Abia State
Governor-elect, Dr Alex Otti and all the candidates of the Labour Party in Abia
and Kano States.
The court ruled that their emergence was not in compliance
with the provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act.
A copy of the judgement delivered by the court was obtained
Friday morning
The Court in Suit No FHC/KN/CS/107/2023 filed by Mr Ibrahim
Haruna Ibrahim against the Labour Party and the Independent National Electoral
Commission, INEC, ruled that the failure of the Labour Party to submit its
membership register to the INEC within 30 days before their primaries renders
the process invalid.
“The party that has not complied with the provisions of the
electoral act cannot be said to have a candidate in an election and cannot be
declared winner of an election; this being so, the votes credited to the 1st
defendant is a wasted vote,” the Judge ruled.
On Wednesday, the Labour Party had accused a “breakaway
group” of the party led by acting National Chairman Lamidi Apapa of approaching
a court in Kano State to seek the nullification of the party’s recent electoral
victories.
The LP’s acting National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh,
who raised the alarm in a statement, said “The Labour Party has been informed
of an illegal attempt by a breakaway group in the party led by Lamidi Apapa to
misguide a Kano state High court to invalidate all the elections won by the
Labour Party in the just concluded general election.”
The party spokesman alleged that “the suspended National
Legal Adviser and a key member of the disgraced Apapa group, Samuel Akingbade
Oyelekan, on Wednesday while the Presidential Appeal Tribunal was sitting in
Abuja with all attentions focused on it, clandestinely sneaked out of Abuja to
Kano state where he in collaboration with some members of the other political
parties asked the court to invalidate all the elections won by the Labour
Party, particularly, the national assembly in the 36 states and FCT on the
ground that we didn’t submit register of voters to INEC.”
He added that Akingbade, who presented himself as
representing the Labour Party, did not oppose the motion, thus forcing the
helpless judge to reserve judgement for Thursday, (yesterday).
Ifoh went on to ask the judiciary and all law enforcement
agencies, including the police and the Department of State Services, DSS, to
note that Akingbade and loyalists of Apapa’s had ceased to represent the party.
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