From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in Kaduna State and its governorship candidate, Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi, have vowed to drag the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to the Appeal Court.
The party and its candidate are appealing the ruling for listing the candidate of the All Progressives Party (APC) candidate, Uba Sani and 34 other candidates for the 2023 election.
The Federal High Court in Kaduna had declared as status bar the suit brought before it in its ruling on Tuesday.
Following the ruling, NNPP and its candidate said it would challenge the ruling at the Appeal Court.
According to NNPP and its governorship candidate, the APC as a party did not conduct valid ward congresses that produced delegates that participated in the primaries that produced its governorship candidate, Assembly candidates and should not have been listed as candidates for the 2023 general elections.
Addressing a press conference at the State Party Secretariat in the company of the party’s Secretary Yahaya Shenko, Hunkuyi informed that the party did not drag APC or its candidates to court but the “INEC for listing the candidates produced from faulty ward congresses and primaries.”
According to the NNPP governorship hopeful, “democracy requires a free, fair and credible election but it cannot bear fruits unless there is transparency in the manner and action of INEC in the conduct of elections in Nigeria.
“NNPP rely on the content of legislation of the electoral Act chapter 29 which states very clearly that political parties must submit name or names of candidates who emerged through valid primaries.
“The Federal High Court in its ruling declared that our matter is a 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 subsection 13.
“We filed our case against INEC 14 days after INEC published the names of the candidates on the 22nd of July 2022.”
While corroborating the governorship candidate’s position, the state Secretary of NNPP said, “In the eyes of the law, the APC in Kaduna State had no candidates in the forthcoming elections”.