The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was instructed to accept the Labour Party’s (LP) nomination of candidates in 24 States of the Federation for the general elections of 2023 by a Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday.
The Court mandated that INEC must either physically or electronically approve the list of candidates from the 24 States.
The trial judge, Justice Inyang Ekwo, found INEC in violation of Sections 31, 33, and 36 of the Electoral Act 2022 when it rejected the Labour Party’s candidates in the affected States on the grounds that its nomination portal was not functional in his judgements in the 24 different lawsuits brought before him by the party.
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Kwara, Plateau, Nasarawa, Lagos, Kaduna, Oyo, Benue, Bauchi, Ebonyi, and Ekiti States are among the 24 States impacted by the court order.
Along with others, the list also contains the states of Katsina, Bayelsa, Niger, Rivers, Sokoto, Akwa Ibom, Gombe, Borno, Osun, Adamawa, and Cross River.
The Labour Party conducted replacement nominations for its candidates who withdrew from the 2023 general elections in the impacted states in November of last year.
The National Chairman and National Secretary of the party informed INEC of the withdrawals and the date of the substitution nomination primary elections on October 27.
However, when the names of the new candidates were uploaded, INEC stated that the nomination system was broken and refused to manually approve the candidate list, which resulted in 24 legal actions.
In the ruling, Justice Ekwo stated that the Labour Party’s testimony in the nomination dispute through correspondence with INEC was trustworthy and went on to give it probative value.
The judge ruled that the Labour Party could not be subjected to the effects of an electronic nomination gateway that was not functioning.
