An Abeokuta Federal High Court has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognize all Labour Party (LP) National Assembly candidates in Ogun State for the 2023 general elections.
When INEC released its final list of candidates, the names of all LP candidates in Ogun were missing.
Following the omission, the party took INEC to court, claiming that the omission was an administrative error on INEC’s part because the commission’s conduct of primary elections did not violate the Electoral Act.
The party insisted on holding credible primary elections and on submitting the names of the candidates who emerged from the primaries within the 90-day period specified by the Electoral Act.
The INEC was the sole respondent in the FHC/AB/CS/243/2022 suit filed by the Labour Party, Comrade Abayomi Arabambi, and eight others.
The party had asked the court for an order compelling INEC to “accept, recognize, and publish the names of the party’s candidates.”
Justice Akintayo Aluko ordered the electoral umpire on Thursday to accept and immediately publish the names of the party’s three senatorial, nine House of Representatives, and 26 State House of Assembly candidates on its website.
Monday Mawah, LP’s counsel, responded, saying, “with this judgment, our Senatorial, House of Representatives and all the 26 State House of Assembly candidates have now been given clearance to contest in the election.
“Today, the court answered the question raised by the Labour Party in the affirmative that we are still within time to conduct primaries and then the court thereafter ordered that INEC should accept the list of candidates from the Federal to the State level to be published immediately to enable those candidates participate like every other candidate and to enable Labour Party to participate like every other party in the forthcoming election.
“The governorship candidate is not part of the case. The candidates that we got judgement for in this case are the three senatorial candidates, the house of representatives and national assembly in the state.
“His (governorship candidate) case is still in the court and he is doing it with his own lawyer, so it is not part of the ones we handled for the party,” he said.
