By Pascal Adebiyi
The Ogun State chapter of the Labour Party has dragged the Independent National Electoral Commission, African Democratic Congress, (ADC) and its governorship candidate, Biyi Otegbeye to court over alleged electoral misconduct.
This came after INEC released its final list of qualified candidates for the forthcoming general elections.
Speaking with journalists immediately after the court hearing, the prosecuting counsel, Monday Mawah alleged that the list released by INEC has been manipulated.
According to Mawah, INEC publicly declared that the Commission did not monitor the ADC primary election in Ogun State, but later released a list containing the gubernatorial candidate of the party, saying that this contradicted Section 84(1) of the Electoral Act, 2022.
Mawah said, “On the 4th of October, INEC released the final list of qualified candidate that are contesting for the general election. Surprisingly, we saw some names of candidates of ADC in that final list and of course, before the final list was released, we got some reports and a satified document from INEC that the ADC as a political party did not conduct primary election nor did they conduct substitution primaries".
“And by Section 84 (1), every primary for the nomination of candidates must be monitored by INEC. But the INEC with the responsibility of monitoring the primary election said it did not monitor any primary conducted by ADC".
“So, If they did not monitor their primaries, where did INEC get the name they published for ADC?
“Since we are no satisfied with that, we decided to approach the court to look at Section 84 Sub 1 that says INEC must monitor all primary by all political parties".
“Also there is Section 177 empowers INEC to monitor the conduct of any primary or any election. So, if this organ that had been empowered to monitor this primary is saying they did not witness any primary and then took a 360-degree turn to now publish names of this party, they said they did not monitor and did not even conduct primary, the head should roll".
“Because if you want to conduct an election, you must inform and invite INEC for the primaries".
“So, in the eye of the law, there is no primary in the first place. So, if there was no such, where did they now get the names on the list they released in favour of ADC?
The LP pray for an order "disqualifying the 3rd defendant and every other candidate that emerged
from the purported primaries from participating in the general election scheduled to hold on the 25th of Feb and 11th March 2023 respectively for failure to comply with paragraph 15 of the third schedule to the 1999 Constitution and Section B4(3)
of the Electoral Act 2022".
“We think the matter will go on today but they (ADC) came and said there is something they also need to file in response to the counter we filed in opposition to their notice of preliminary objection and they have prayed the court to give them another date.
The case was adjourned till November 17th, 2022 for further hearing.
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