Appeal Court Dismisses Suit Seeking To Disqualify Peter Obi
The court of appeal in Abuja threw out a case that tried to keep Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party (LP), from running in the election.
On Wednesday, a three-person panel of justices led by Monica Dongbam-Mensem, the president of the appeal court, said that the Allied Peoples Movement’s (APM) appeal marked CA/ABJ/CV/1414/2022 was not valid.
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The APM filed its appeal saying that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) shouldn’t have recognized Obi as the LP presidential candidate because he left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and joined the LP.
They said that the time between when Obi left the PDP and when he switched to the LP in order to run for president was against the Electoral Act of 2022, Sections 77(2) and (3).
They also said that the LP had sent INEC a list of its registered members before Obi left the party.
So, APM asked the higher court to overturn the decision of a federal high court in Abuja, which had thrown out the case the party had filed to challenge Obi’s candidacy.
The appeals court threw out the case because sections 29(5), 84(14), and 142 of the Electoral Act and section 285(14) of the constitution make it clear who can file a pre-election case to get a candidate kicked out of the race.
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The appeals court also said that section 157 of the Electoral Act says that only an aspirant can challenge a candidate’s nomination, and the APM does not meet the requirements to be an LP aspirant.
In its decision, the court said that INEC “has done nothing more than follow the rules of the Electoral Act” by putting Obi’s name in the paper as it was given by LP.
The suit and all the things the party asked for in the trial court were thrown out by the court of appeals.
It also gave Obi and the LP a cost of N200,000 each.
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