…As Apapa-led faction blames Abure
From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Labour Party (LP) has rejected the judgement by a Federal High Court sitting in Kano State, which nullified the candidature of the Abia State Governor-elect, Dr Alex Otti and all the candidates of the party in Abia and Kano States.
A statement issued by LP Acting National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, described the judgement as laughable and inconsequential, stating that the court lacks the jurisdiction to entertain election matters at a time when elections have since been concluded and winners emerged.
Ifoh said the party will lose no sleep over the issue as it would soon direct its lawyers to approach the Appeal Court to vacate the ill conceived judgement.
According to him, “The Court in Suit No FHC/KN/CS/107/2023 filed by Mr Ibrahim 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 Independent National electoral commission within 30 days before their primaries renders the process invalid.
“It also ruled that the party having 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.”
Ifoh said the Labour party which was mentioned as a respondent was not aware of any suit against it in Kano state as the party was not served with any summons.
He also said the leadership of the Labour Party was horrified with the judgement even more concerned with the haste with which Justice M N Yunusa of Kano High Court discharged the duties the judgement in the matter allegedly brought before him by suspended members of the party loyal to the former deputy National Chairman, Lamidi Apapa lasted only 48 hours.”
“The former National Legal Adviser Samuel Akingbade Oyelekan has since ceased from being an officer of the party and his appearance for the party is not with any authorization from the leadership of the party’s National Working Committee.
“You will recall that on Wednesday, we raised an alarm that suspended National Legal Adviser Samuel Akingbade Oyelekan, while the Presidential Election Petition 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 the party didn’t submit register of voters to INEC.
Akingbade who presented himself as representing the Labour Party, did not oppose the motion, thus forcing the helpless judge to reserve judgement for Thursday. On hearing the evil agenda of Apapa’s plot, the party directed one of its counsels to appear on its behalf, an attempted that was rejected by the judge, who went ahead to give judgement against the party.
“The Kano Court is also not a tribunal which has the constitutional powers to entertain pre election matters.” He said.
Meanwhile, the suspended Apapa Lamidi-Led National Working Committee (NWC) of the party, has blamed the Party’s National Chairman, Julius Abure and National Secretary, Farouk Ibrahim for the court judgement.
According a statement by LP expelled former National Publicity Secretary, the two party officials’ failure to submit membership register in Kano and Abia, lead to the nullification.
“The truth is that, they held onto these names and didn’t submit them to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in accordance to Section 72 of Electoral Act, 2022 (as amended).
“While national chairmen and Secretaries of other political parties were busy doing all that was necessary to meet with the deadline for the submission of names of registered members , Abure and company were busy shopping for candidates to swindle and smuggle their names into the party’s register in exchange for those who won their primaries in some parts of the country.
“Today, we have been vindicated after a Federal High Court in Kano, presided over by Justice M N Yunusa 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 due to Labour Party failures to complies with Section 72 of the Electoral Act 2022 ( as Amended)
“The reason is unconnected with what I have lamented over in the past few months that Abure’s action was not in compliance with the provisions of the 2022 electoral act. The failure of the Labour Party to submit its membership register to the INEC within 30 days before their primaries renders the process invalid.
“If we failed to comply with the provisions of the electoral act we cannot as well said that we had candidates going into the elections in the affected states.” The statement said.