Updated: Labour Party rubbishes court judgement declaring Alex Otti, all party candidates’ votes in Abia wasted

The Labour Party has rubbished the judgement of the Federal High Court in Kano State, which sacked Alex Otti, the governor-elect of Abia State, and all elected representatives of the Labour Party to the national assembly.

Speaking to Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday, Kehinde Edun, the National Legal Adviser responding to a question on how the party felt about the judgement and what the party intends to do, said that the judgement was not only an aberration but was clearly the handiwork of the suspended deputy national chairman, Lamidi Apapa, and his executives.

“This judgement is a vindication of our position that the Apapa group is sponsored to bring the party down,” Edun said.

He explained that Apapa and some of his executives had planned this scheme of using illegality to cause mayhem in the party. They had, according to Edun, decided to take the matter outside the jurisdiction of the rightful court to file a case in the Kano State Federal High Court, which had no power to entertain such a matter.

“They are the ones who went to Kano to file a matter thinking that they could injure the party by nullifying the elections of our elected candidates, including Alex Otti, our senators-elect, and our house reps-elect, but they couldn’t do it. The truth is that they went to Kano, they filed a matter against INEC and the Labour Party, and they think that with that judgement they could nullify the elections of our elected officials. It is not true, and that can never happen,” he said.

On the steps that the party has taken, he said, “Yes, the judgement was given yesterday—we have a lawyer in Kano who is trying to get the judgement to us, and we will look at it. But ordinarily, none of our electoral officers was a defendant in that matter.’

He said that he found it difficult to accept such a judgement, especially as none of the defendants were present at the court, whose proceedings took precisely 48 hours to arrive at a judgement.

Edun also pointed out a contradiction in the judgement where, at the end, Justice M. N. Yunusa agreed that judgement should come from the appropriate court.

He said, “You can’t get judgement against somebody who has won an election, has gotten a certificate of return, and is due to be sworn in, and you are saying that you are getting judgement against that person.

“But I want to say that the court actually said that it would not give an order against Alex Otti because Otti and the elected members in Abia are not before the court. And that if anybody wants judgement against them, they should go to the appropriate division of the court. The court was talking about territorial jurisdiction in that matter. That court in Kano could not have done it.

“Just looking at that process, that judgement order, you could see that they were not in court. So there is no way we could suffer any injuries. We are happy because this is a vindication of our position about what Apapa and his mutiny group are doing.”

Meanwhile, Otti had called for calm in Abia State and promised that his inauguration would still go ahead, insisting that the judgement is illegal and therefore null and void.

Recall that the Federal High Court sitting in Kano had declared the votes polled by the Abia State governor-elect, Alex Otti, in the last general election as wasted, but refused to nullify the certificate of return issued to him as the winner of the poll.

The judgement delivered by M.N. Yunusa on Thursday ruled that their emergence was not in compliance with the provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act and affected other Labour Party candidates for various elective positions in Abia and Kano States who were involved in the 2023 general elections.

A copy of the judgement delivered by the court was made available to newsmen on Friday and read: The Court in Suit No FHC/KN/CS/107/2023 filed by Mr Ibrahim Haruna Ibrahim against the Labour Party and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, ruled that the failure of the Labour Party to submit its membership register to the INEC within 30 days before their primaries renders the process invalid.

“The party that has not complied with the provisions of the electoral act cannot be said to have a candidate in an election and cannot be declared winner of an election; this being so, the votes credited to the 1st defendant is a wasted vote,” the Judge ruled.

The Abia governor-elect and others affected are expected to appeal the judgement.

Mr Otti, the candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the March 18 governorship election in the state, was declared winner of the exercise by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on 22 March.