A Federal High Court sitting in Abeokuta has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to list all the names of candidates of the Labour Party for the 2023 national and State Assembly seats.
Justice Adetayo Aluko in his judgement, noted that the Electoral Act, 2022 is superior to INEC guidelines on elections, stating further that Section 31 of the Electoral Act, 2022 allows parties to still submit names of candidates that emerge from substitution primaries not later than 90 days before the election.
He said that the electoral umpire, by its own manuals, cannot limit the time provided for by the Electoral Act.
It would be recalled that the INEC, has failed to list the candidates of Labour Party for the National and State Assembly seats for what the electoral umpire termed as failure from the Party to submit any name of the candidate for the 26 House Assembly seats, Three Senatorial seat and Nine House of Representatives before the time frame of submission.
In the suit tagged: FHC/AB/CS/243/2022 between Labour Party, National Publicity Secretary of the party, Abayomi Arabambi, and eight others and the INEC as respondent, the party prayed the court for an order to compel INEC to accept, recognise and publish the names of candidates submitted by the party.
Delivering his judgement on the prayer of the party, Justice Akintayo Aluko ordered INEC to accept and immediately publish the names of the three senatorial, nine House of Representatives and 26 state House of Assembly candidates of the party on its website.
Justice Aluko affirmed that the party held primaries and filed a list of candidates before the deadline set for political parties.
Monday Mawah, lawyer to LP, told journalists following the court session that “with this verdict, our senatorial, House of Representatives, and all 26 State House of Assembly candidates have now been given clearance to contest the election.”
