BREAKING: Nigerian High Court Nullifies NNPP Primaries In Rivers, Sacks All State Assembly Candidates
A Federal High Court in Port Harcourt has dismissed the 14 New Nigeria People’s Party candidates for the Rivers State House of Assembly in advance of the 2023 elections.
The party was fired by the court for “non-compliance” with the Electoral Act in how its primaries were conducted.
The NNPP candidates had been sued by the state’s ruling Peoples Democratic Party, which was seeking to have them disqualified.
The presiding Judge, Justice Turaki Muhammed, in his judgment said the PDP was able to prove to the court that the opposition party did not follow the guidelines stipulated in the new Electoral Act during their party primaries.
The judge, therefore, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission to stop recognising the affected persons as candidates.
This comes a few days after the court nullified all the primaries conducted by the All Progressives Congress in the state over the unlawful exclusion of some members of the party as delegates to the primaries.
Some members of the party in the state, led by George Orlu, had approached the court asking it to nullify the party primaries over their exclusion.
The APC in Rivers has been fractionalised between loyalists of the former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, and a former governorship aspirant of the party, Magnus Abe.
Abe had defected to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) where he picked the governorship ticket for next year’s election.
The plaintiffs in the case are mainly loyalists of Abe.
