The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has thrown out an appeal by the Allied Peoples Movement, APM, which sought to disqualify the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, from the February 25, 2023, general election.
In the appeal marked: CA/ABJ/CV/1414/2022, the Movement had approached the Court, to appeal the running of Federal High Court which dismissed the suit it filed challenging Obi’s candidacy.
The APM is contending that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, should not have recognized Mr. Obi as a valid candidate for the presidential poll.
APM said this in view of what it considers the time that Obi left the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to join the LP.
The party had argued that the period of Obi’s defection to the LP for the purpose of contesting the presidential election, in its view, was in violation of sections 77(2) and (3) of the Electoral Act, 2022.
They had also argued that before Obi’s defection, the LP had already sent a list of its registered members to the INEC as required by law.
According to them, Obi should not have been recognized as the LP candidate because his name was not on the list of the party members that was submitted to INEC.
