The Kaduna state chapter of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and its governorship candidate, Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi, have vowed to appeal against the decision of a Federal High Court, in a suit against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which sought to stop the inclusion of all candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state from contesting the 2023 elections.
The party had approached a Federal High Court sitting in Kaduna, to stop INEC from listing Senator Uba Sani, governorship candidate of the APC (APC) and 34 other candidates of the party in the 2023 elections.
The Federal High Court, had in its ruling on Tuesday declared the suit as status bar and dismissed it accordingly.
The NNPP had alleged that INEC violated provisions of the Electoral Act, by listing Sani and 34 others as candidates for elections maintaining that the APC did not hold valid delegate congresses for the primary elections.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday in Kaduna, alongside the party’s secretary Yahaya Shenko, Hunkuyi said the NNPP sued INEC “for listing the candidates produced from a faulty ward congresses and primaries of the APC.”
He said, “NNPP relied on the content of legislation of the Electoral Act which states very clearly that political parties must submit name or names of candidates who emerged through a valid primaries.
“The Federal High Court in its ruling declared that our matter is status bar, that the timing between delegate election and the primaries and when the case should have been filed was not followed.
“But the fact is that NNPP did not drag APC to court but INEC for interpretation of Electoral Act 84 sub-section 13.
“We filed our case against INEC, 14 days after it published names of the candidates on the 22nd July, 2022.”
Also commenting on the issue during the press conference, the party secretary said, in the eye of the law, the APC in Kaduna state had no candidates for the 2023 elections.
By John Shiklam
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