The Abia State Governor-Elect Alex Otti has called for calm following the nullification of his candidature and that of the Labour Party candidates in the state and Kano.
In a statement by his spokesman Ferdinand Ekeoma hours after the judgement, Otti said inauguration plans are underway despite the development.
The statement read that “we would like to assure Abians in particular and Nigerians in general that the nationally celebrated mandate given to Dr. Alex Otti by the long-suffering Abia masses is safe and secure and can never be stolen by strange usurpers who are pained and frightened by the reality of their imminent exit from power in the next few days.
“In the next few days, Dr. Alex Otti will be sworn in as governor to enable him to commence the process of rebuilding and recovering our state that was destroyed and plundered by the PDP, so Abians are enjoined to ignore the FAKE REPORT claiming that he has been sacked by a High Court in Kano.”
He accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of spreading misinformation following the development.
“The report being sponsored and widely circulated by the PDP and Abia state government alleging that a Kano High Court has sacked the Abia Governor-Elect, Dr. Alex Otti, OFR is baseless, unfounded and misleading, and thus should be ignored,” the statement added.
“For the records, though the perpetrators targeted the Abia Governor-Elect and the people of Abia for that legal coup, they were not courageous enough to confront him in the open, hence he was never joined as a party for fear that his eminently qualified lawyers would take the perpetrators to the cleaners.”
Justice Mohammed Yunusa of the Federal High Court Kano has declared the votes polled by the Abia State governor-elect, Alex Otti, in the last general election as wasted, but stopped short of making an order withdrawing Mr Otti’s and other affected candidates’ certificates of return.
Justice Yunusa cited the failure of the Labour Party to submit its membership registers of Kano and Abia, to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) preparatory to the party’s primary election as the basis for his verdict.
He said that it was in breach of the provisions of Section 77(3) of the Electoral Act, 2022,
The judge, ruling on a suit by Mr. Ibrahim Ibrahim, said under Section 77(3) of the Electoral Act, Labour Party ought to submit its membership registers to INEC 30 days before its primary elections in Kano and Abia states.
The judge held that the void primary elections of the Labour Party, cannot produce eligible candidates to be sponsored by the party in the general election, and the participation of the candidates of the party, in the election in Kano State and Abia State, is wasted.
The judge also turned down the request of the plaintiff who asked the court to order INEC to declare the first runners-up in all the elections in Abia and Kano states as winners.
Justice Yunusa said since the candidates that came second in the election were not parties in the suit before him, the court, lacks the jurisdiction to make an order for the issuance of a certificate of return to them but was at liberty to seek redress in the appropriate division of the court.
