BREAKING: Court Nullifies Alex Otti’s Candidature, All Labour Party Candidates In Abia, Kano 

The court concluded that their election did not comply with the Electoral Act of 2022 terms.

By Omotayo Olutekunbi

A Federal High Court sitting in Kano presided over by Justice M N Yunusa, has declared the candidacy of Abia State Governor-elect Dr Alex Otti and all Labour Party candidates in Abia and Kano States null and void.

The court concluded that their election did not comply with the Electoral Act of 2022 terms.

The DAILY POST got a copy of the court’s decision on Friday morning.

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 render the process invalid.

“The party that has 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; this being so, the votes credited to the 1st defendant is a wasted vote,” the Judge ruled.

DAILY POST reports that on Wednesday, the Labour Party had accused a “breakaway group” of the party led by acting National Chairman Lamidi Apapa of approaching a court in Kano State to seek the nullification of the party’s recent electoral victories.

The LP’s acting National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, who raised the alarm in a statement, said: “The Labour Party has been informed of an illegal attempt by a breakaway group in the party led by Lamidi Apapa to misguide a Kano state High court to invalidate all the elections won by the Labour Party in the just concluded general election.”

The party spokesman alleged that “the suspended National Legal Adviser and a key member of the disgraced Apapa group, Samuel Akingbade Oyelekan, on Wednesday while the Presidential Appeal 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 we didn’t submit register of voters to INEC.”

He added that Akingbade, who represented the Labour Party, did not oppose the motion, thus forcing the helpless judge to reserve judgment for Thursday (yesterday).

Ifoh asked the judiciary and all law enforcement agencies, including the police and the Department of State Services, DSS, to note that Akingbade and loyalists of Apapa’s had ceased to represent the party.