Ben Peters, Abuja
Following the Federal High Court judgement in Kano State that invalidated the election of Labour Party candidates in Kano and Abia states , an Abuja based lawyer, Dr. Samson Osagie said if the party failed to comply with section 77(2,3) of the Electoral Act, then the party and it’s candidates are in for a serious trouble.
Dr. Osagie , a former minority whip, House of Representatives said though he had not read the full judgement of the court, his understanding of the judgement is that some people in Kano went to court to say that the LP did not comply with Section 77 sub- section 2,3 of the Electoral Act in submitting its register to INEC before it went ahead to conduct its primary.
The Nigeria Chairman, Africa Bar forum said since that was a mandatory section of the law , LP ought to have complied , having failed to comply, all the primaries conducted by the party across the country become null and void, and of no effect whatsoever.
“The implications of that is all the candidates of labour party who ran for the election on the 18th March and 25th of February are dim not to be candidates in the eyes of the law. And I think that is an interesting judgement in that is seen to enforce the provisions of the electoral act and compliance with them by political parties and political actors.
On the argument that the judgement is death on arrival, Osagie, “Of course, they are going to appeal and to the supreme court,it will be an interesting things for us to know what the final judgement is, but for now, the labour party who have secured winning in the election, given certificate of return, they might still enjoy the privilege of being swore in pending when the entire processes of appeal is concluded, but is a very interesting matter as we going on , we will like to see how it end especially at the supreme court.
On the issue of the case being a pre-election matter, he said, “no, no, that can happen, under section 134 in Electoral act, there are condition of which you can challenge an election because when you say, that a political party did not comply with the provisions of the electoral act before it conducted its primaries, what that means is that, it goes to the qualifications of those candidates to stand for an election and so , the issue of qualifications of a candidate for an election is both pre-election and post election matter , that have been given a legal teeth, legal validation by section 134(1) of the electoral act which provides that an election may be questioned on any of following grants:
a person who his election is question at the time of the election and not qualify to contest for the election,so in this case, labour party candidates who are products of the party primaries who did not comply electoral act, their election can be questioned on the grands that they were not qualified to stand for the election for the first place, haven be validly nominated in compliance with section 77 and 78 of the electoral act, so with this, you can not put something on nothing and expect it to stand.”
Meanwhile ,a Federal High Court sitting in Kano, presided over by Justice M N Yunusa has 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.
The court ruled that their emergence was not in compliance with the provisions of the 2022 electoral act.
The Court in Suit No FHC/KN/CS/107/2023 filed by Mr Ibrahim Haruna 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 INEC within 30 days before their primaries renders the process invalid.