In the judgment of the Federal High Court in Kano, presided over by Justice M N Yunusa, the Court of Appeal in Kano State has ordered a stay of execution.
In a ruling, Justice Yunusa ruled that all votes cast for Labour Party candidates in Kano, Abia, and other states were invalid.
This is in response to an application made by Dr. Alex Otti, the next governor of Abia State.
Otti’s legal team requested that he be added to the appeal as an interested party and that the lower court’s verdict be stayed pending resolution of the current case.
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The Appeal Court granted the request.
Recall that the court had decided that the selection procedure for Alex Otti, the newly elected governor of Abia State, and other party candidates did not adhere to the guidelines in the 2022 electoral act.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Labour Party were both defendants in the lawsuit No. FHC/KN/CS/107/2023 that Mr. Ibrahim Haruna Ibrahim filed against them. The court determined that the Labour Party’s failure to provide INEC with a copy of its membership register at least 30 days prior to the primaries rendered the selection process invalid.
The applicant had also sought the high court to nullify the Certificate of Return given to each and every LP candidate and order INEC to return the first-place finisher in every contest in which LP prevailed.
But the appellant sought the court to overturn the trial court’s ruling in an appeal submitted by LP attorney Umeh Kalu SAN on May 22.void the verdict of the trial court.
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According to Kalu, who outlined the grounds for his appeal, “the trial court erred in law and occasioned a miscarriage of justice when it entertained the suit, which was bereft of any course of action.”
According to Kalu, the Election Tribunals have sole authority to hear complaints regarding the participation of candidates and the votes they received during the general election under Section 285 of the 1999 Constitution.
Since the issues in the case have been combined, the appeal court will now consider the case’s merit.
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