A chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Senator Victor Umeh, on Monday faulted the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for allegedly meddling in the internal affairs of the party.

In an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, the lawmaker representing Anambra Central Senatorial District decried the leadership rocking the coalition party.

He said the David Mark leadership was not wrong in approaching the court over the recent delisting of the party by the electoral body.

“The truth is that there is no blame on David Mark’s leadership to approach the court of appeal with an interlocutory appeal on the Federal High Court’s refusal to throw away the case that the court has no jurisdiction,” he said.

“The issue of jurisdiction was raised at the onset of the Federal High Court. When the issue of jurisdiction is raised, the court must take it and determine it first of all.

“If the court has no jurisdiction, it has no business going into the matter ab initio. It doesn’t matter how well the court tries the case; if you don’t have jurisdiction, everything you do thereafter will be a nullity.

“When he assumed jurisdiction in the matter, David Mark and his leadership challenged the decision of Justice Nwite’s court that he had no jurisdiction, and they were right,” the lawmaker added.

Further, Umeh said, “If the Court of Appeal had seen that the Federal High Court had no jurisdiction, it wouldn’t have gone on this long journey.

“The court would have seen that even the Court of Appeal itself has no jurisdiction to go into the matter involving the internal affairs of a political party, leadership, for example, no jurisdiction.”

INEC had last week announced that it had delisted Mark and Rauf Aregbesola from its records as National Chairman and National Secretary, respectively.

The commission, through its National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, Mohammed Kudu, said the decision was taken in line with a court order directing it to maintain the status quo pending the final determination of the matter at the trial court. (Channels TV)

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