From Chijioke Agwu, Abakaliki
The Federal High Court Abakaliki Division, Ebonyi State, yesterday, nullified local government and councillorship elections conducted in the state on July 30, 2022 for non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022.
This happened barely a week to the inauguration of a new council leadership in the state’s State Local Government system.
The court nullified the elections for also making the Laws under which it was conducted secret.
The Ebonyi State Independent Electoral Commission (EBSIEC) conducted the council election for the 13 council areas and 171 ward councilors with the All Progressives Congress (APC) winning all the seats.The chairmen were to be sworn in on September 1, 2022.
Otu Collins Eleri, Nelson Eze, Akaa Ikechikwu, Micheal Ali, and Isu Amaechi had dragged the electoral umpire, EBSIEC and the government to court for not giving all the aspirants a level playing ground during the election.
The presiding judge Justice Fatun Riman in Suit No: FHC/AI/CS/151 said It was undemocratic and unlawful to conduct an election in the local government areas or council without availing the plaintiffs of the exact law that is meant to regulate the exercise.
Counsel to the plaintiffs, Chief Mudi Erhenede said the processes that produced the chairmen were not transparent.
“There are a lot of other issues with non compliance with the Electoral Act 2022.
“The Electoral Act 2022 said the procedures for conducting elections in the local government areas by state commissions must comply with that procedure for conducting into area councils in the FCT.
“If you look at it, how do you access compliance without law if you hide the law with which you want to conduct the election is it not when you make the law public that we will know whether you complied with it or not, how can you be making laws and hiding them? My position now is that my clients demanded to be availed of this law, we came under the Freedom of Information Act, its intending the procedure to conduct elections, we wrote to EBSIEC, we wrote the House of Assembly, and we wrote to INEC whose responsibilities all of these bodies refused to provide us the law.”