Court Orders INEC to Accept Labour Party Candidates in 24 States
Written by Joey Shekwonuzhibo on February 3, 2023
Ahead of the 2023 general elections, Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC to accept the nominations of candidates of the Labour Party in 24 states of the Federation.
The court ordered that the electoral body must accept the list of the candidates, either manually or through its electronic nomination portal.
Delivering judgement, Justice Ekwo held that INEC violated Sections 31, 33 and 36 of the Electoral Act 2022 in rejecting the LP candidates in the affected states on the ground of non-functional of its nomination portal.
The 24 states affected by the court order are Kwara, Plateau, Nasarawa, Lagos, Kaduna, Oyo, Benue, Bauchi, Ebonyi and Ekiti states.
The rest are Katsina, Bayelsa, Niger, Rivers, Sokoto, Akwa Ibom, Gombe, Borno, Osun, Adamawa and Cross River States among others.
Less than two days after his controversial statement, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, has again taken a swipe at the people he called elements in the Presidency, whom he says are bent on inciting voters against the All Progressives Congress candidate Bola Tinubu.
Speaking with journalists, the governor re-echoed Tinubu who cited the naira redesign policy by the Central Bank of Nigeria and the lingering fuel crisis as part of plots to thwart the poll against him.
EL- Rufai says the time frame for the cashless policy was inflicting needless pain on Nigerians.
The Kaduna State governor’s assertion is coming 24 hours after he stated that people whose preferred candidate lost the APC presidential ticket to the former Lagos state governor last year are working against the APC standard bearer.
However, the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, has stated that the federal government is not officially aware of any entity in the Presidential Villa working against the victory of the APC standard bearer.
To the main opposition party, ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark has accused Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of betrayal for accepting to be the vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP.
He says Okowa betrayed his southern governor-colleagues who, along with him, resolved that power should return to the South after eight years of President Muhammadu Buhari, who is from the North.
The former Federal Commissioner of Information has asked the Delta governor to step down as running mate to Atiku Abubakar and apologise to his colleagues and Southern Nigeria.
However, Okowa denies the betrayal allegation, saying he only accepted to be Atiku’s running mate after a transparent party primary.
