From Okwe Obi, Abuja
Ahead of the November 11 Imo State governorship, candidate of the Labour Party, Ukeagbu Ikechukwu Joseph, has expressed satisfaction over the ruling of the Court of Appeal, Abuja, recognising him as duly nominated flag bearer.
In April 5, 2023, the FCT High Court restrained Abure and others from parading themselves as national officers of LP and the Party appointed the Deputy National Chairman, Lamidi Apapa as its acting national chairman, in pursuant to its constitution.
Sequel to that, the Party led by Apapa wrote to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to change its date of primary earlier scheduled by Abure for 15th an 16th of April, 2023.
But Abure still went ahead to conduct his primaries for Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa on 15th of April, 2023.
On the other hand, Apapa-led faction conducted the primaries for Imo on April 16 and as such there were two primaries conducted by Labour Party in these States.
This led to litigation and the case was frantically descended and the Federal High Court, Owerri Division declared the primaries conducted by Apapa as the authentic candidate as Abure was under a restraining order as at the time he screened candidates and conducted his primaries.
Thus, the court recognized Apapa as the authentic Chairman of the Party.
Dissatisfied with the judgement, Abure’s candidate including the winner of the primaries appealed against the judgement to the Court of Appeal.
The Court on Thursday affirmed the judgement of the Federal High Court that Abure’s conduct was contemptuous as he was under a restraining order when he conducted the said primaries.
Delivering the judgement, Justice H. Sankey, S. Ademola Bola and M. L. Abubakar said the restraining order is still in force even at the time this judgement was delivered.
By the judgement, only the candidates produced by Apapa-led primaries are the original Candidates of LP in Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa governorship poll.