Key highlights
- A Federal High Court sitting in Kano, presided over by Justice M N Yunusa, has declared the candidature of Abia State Governor-elect Dr Alex Otti and all Labour Party candidates in Abia and Kano States null and void.
- Labour Party’s failure to submit its membership register to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, within 30 days before their primaries rendered the process invalid
- Labour Party accused a “breakaway group” of the party led by acting National Chairman Lamidi Apapa of petitioning a Kano State court to have the party’s recent electoral victories annulled.
A Federal High Court sitting in Kano, presided over by Justice M N Yunusa, has declared the candidature of Abia State Governor-elect Dr Alex Otti and all Labour Party candidates in Abia and Kano States null and void.
The court ruled that their election did not comply with the provisions of the Electoral Act of 2022.
What the court said
The Labour Party’s failure to submit its membership register to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, within 30 days before their primaries renders the process invalid, according to the court in Suit No. FHC/KN/CS/107/2023 brought by Mr. Ibrahim Haruna Ibrahim against the Labour Party and INEC.
- “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 accused a “breakaway group” of the party led by acting National Chairman Lamidi Apapa of petitioning a Kano State court to have the party’s recent electoral victories annulled.
In a statement, the Labour Party’s acting National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, 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 recently concluded general election.”
What the spokesman said
The party spokesman alleged that the suspended National Legal Adviser and a key member of Apapa’s group Samuel Akingbade Oyelekan, on Wednesday while the Presidential Appeal Tribunal was sitting in Abuja sneaked out of Abuja to Kano state.
It was there that 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 they didn’t submit register of voters to INEC.
He went on to say that Akingbade, who presented himself as representing the Labour Party, did not oppose the motion, forcing the helpless judge to postpone his decision until Thursday.
Ifoh then requested that the judiciary and all law enforcement agencies, including the police and the Department of State Services, DSS, take note that Akingbade and Apapa’s loyalists had ceased to represent the party.
