2023: The court upholds the decision to remove Al-Mustpha and other candidates for AA.
On Thursday, a Federal High Court (FHC) in Abuja rejected a request to overturn its Nov. 4 decision recognizing the Action Alliance (AA) party leadership led by Dr. Adekunle Rufai Omo-candidates. Aje’s
Justice Zainab Abubakar came to the conclusion that the appeal made by the factional leadership under the direction of Kenneth Obidiche Udeze lacked merit.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) says that in a ruling from November 4, Justice Abubakar told the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to accept the candidates that the Omo-Aje leadership of the AA had put forward for the general elections of 2023.
Additionally, the judge instructed the electoral umpire to disqualify the candidates put forth by the factional leader Udeze, including retired Major Hamzat Al-Mustpha.
However, Udeze, whose suspension and expulsion as the AA national chairman had been affirmed in two judgments of the Court of Appeal, had applied to the FHC, Abuja, to set aside the Nov. 4 verdict, contending that it had been obtained by fraud and that he was still the party’s national chairman.
In his ruling on Thursday, Justice Abubakar said that Udeze had no right to claim to be the party’s chairman because of the two ongoing Court of Appeal rulings and the other ruling from an FHC in Abeokuta.
The verdict of the Abeokuta FHC was made on September 8 by Justice J. O. Abdulmalik in a case with the filing number FHC/AB/CS/120/2022, as opposed to the two judgments of the Court of Appeal, which were rendered on January 7 and November 11.
The judge ruled that Udeze’s earlier ruling from November 4 was not obtained fraudulently, as she claimed.
She characterized Udeze as a busy body and an intrusive outsider who was trying to intervene in the business of the gathering from which he had been temporarily suspended and ultimately expelled.
As a result, Abubakar dismissed the lawsuit.
Al-Mustapha, a former advisor to the late Gen. Sani Abacha, won the party’s Udeze faction presidential primary election on June 9 in Abuja with 506 votes, beating his only opponent, Samson Odupitan.
(NAN)
