By Alex Enumah:
Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on Thursday, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to accept and publish the name of Senator Godswill Akpabio as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 senatorial election in Akwa Ibom North/West Senatorial District.
Justice Nwite made the order while delivering judgment in a suit challenging the refusal of INEC to recognize Akpabio as APC’s candidate in the said poll.
While the APC and Akpabio are the first and second plaintiffs respectively in the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1011/2022, INEC is the sole defendant.
The court, in its judgment, held that the electoral umpire acted illegally by refusing to accept and publish Akpabio’s name when it was submitted to it by the APC as its candidate.
According to the judge, Akpabio was validly nominated as the candidate of the APC in the forthcoming Akwa Ibom North/West Senatorial District election at a primary conducted by the APC’s National Working Committee (NWC) on June 9, 2022.
The judge declared that INEC “is bound by the provisions of Section 29 (3) of the Electoral Act to publish only the personal particulars of the candidate of the first plaintiff for the Akwa Ibom North/West Senatorial District elections in the person of the second plaintiff (Akpabio) as received from the first plaintiff”.
The judge also declared that INEC cannot publish any other name or particulars of any other candidate as the candidate of the APC for the Akwa lbom North/West Senatorial District elections, “except as nominated, submitted and received from the first plaintiff (APC)”.
He then ordered INEC to publish the name and particulars of Akpabio as the candidate of the APC for the Akwa Iborn North/West Senatorial District in the 2023 general election as nominated and submitted to it by the party.
Justice Nwite rejected INEC’s claim that it declined to monitor the primary conducted by APC on June 9, which produces Akpabio as the party’s candidate, because it had monitored the one conducted on May 27.
The judge faulted INEC for monitoring the May 27 primary, conducted by an illegal faction of the party led by Augustine Ekanem, as against the June 9 primary conducted by the APC’s NWC, an organ of the party authorised by law to conduct such primaries.
Justice Nwite said: “I am of the view that the defendant (INEC) cannot choose and impose a candidate on a political party.
“The fact that INEC chose to monitor an illegal primary and produce a report, cannot give it legitimacy.
“INEC cannot unilaterally pronounce a primary conducted by a political party or a candidate submitted to it as invalid, without a valid court order.
“The consequences of the defendant’s (INEC’s) failure to monitor the legal primary conducted on June 9 by the first plaintiff, cannot be visited on the plaintiffs.
“The defendant lacks the vires to usurp or assume the power of the court to disqualify a candidate.”
The judge noted that it was not in doubt that there were two primaries conducted by the APC for the Akwa Ibom North/West Senatorial District: one by the NWC of the APC, and the other by Augustine Ekanem, an illegal factional Chairman of the APC in Akwa Ibom State.
The judge also noted that INEC accepted correspondence from the said Ekanem, an impostor, and monitored an illegal primary not conducted by the NWC of APC.
The judge further noted that despite being invited and notified, INEC chose not to attend the validly conducted primary of the APC for the Akwa Ibom North/West Senatorial District, where Akpabio was elected and nominated, but decided to term the primary illegal.
