Court Sacks Three Rivers Labour Party NASS Candidates

A Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt has sacked three National Assembly candidates of the Labour Party in Rivers State.

The candidates are for Obio/Akpor and Port Harcourt City Local Government constituencies.

The ruling Peoples Democratic Party in the state had dragged the Labour Party to court for allegedly not complying with the new Electoral Act in their emergence as candidates.

The PDP had asked the court to nullify the primary in which they were elected and direct the Independent National Electoral Commission to disqualify the candidates.

The Presiding Judge, Justice Stephen Daylop-Pam, in his judgment agreed with the originating summon of the PDP that challenged the competence of the Labour Party to nominate candidates in the primary election that INEC did not monitor.

Daylop-Pam also ruled that the PDP proved that INEC did not monitor the primary election of the affected constituencies and ordered the electoral umpire not to recognise the affected candidates of the Labour Party for the 2023 general election.

Meanwhile, counsel for the PDP, Dike Udenna, expressed happiness at the judgment.

But counsel for Labour Party and the three candidates, Uche Ollewunne, disclosed that he would advise his clients to appeal the judgment.