By TAIYE AGBAJE

The Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday nullified the emergence of Sen. Sunday Karimi as the 2027 All Progressives Congress (APC)’s candidate for the Kogi West Senatorial District election.

Justice Salim Ibrahim, in a judgment, ordered Karimi to stop further parading himself as the APC’s candidate for the senatorial district in the forthcoming general elections.

Justice Ibrahim held that the plaintiff, Bamidele Aro, had been able to prove his case and was entitled to all the reliefs sought.

The judge held that from the totality of evidence placed before the court, the election that Aro won was conducted by the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) Election Committee and monitored by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) but “the purported primary allegedly won by Karimi was not monitored by the commission and was, therefore, invalid.”

He observed that INEC did not have the record of the results of the election Karimi claimed to have won.

“No wonder, the 3rd defendant (INEC) did not give them the certified true copy of same even after being applied for by the 2nd defendant (Karimi) to the 3rd defendant by a letter dated June 15,” he said, citing Karimi’s Exhibit 7b to back his decision.

Justice Ibrahim, therefore, said: “there is no gainsaying that the purported primary that produced the 2nd defendant was not monitored by the 3rd defendant as required by the Electoral Act and therefore, invalid.”

According to him, Section 84(1)&(12) of the Electoral Act, 2022 makes it mandatory for INEC to monitor primaries of registered political parties and the consequences of this is that any primary of a political party not so monitored would be regarded, ordinarily, as invalid.

“The law is settled that for a party primary to be valid, the INEC/2nd Cross/Respondent has to mandatorily observe, and monitor the nomination of the party’s candidate in line with the requirement of Sections 82 (2) (b) and 84 (1) of the Electoral Act, 2022,” he said.

The judge, who granted all the reliefs sought by Aro in his suit, said: “the law is trite that it is the aspirant who emerged at the end of the primaries with highest number of votes that shall be declared the winner of the primaries of the party and the aspirant shall be issued with INEC Form EC9 which shall be forwarded to INEC as the candidate of the party.”

Justice Ibrahim, therefore, ordered the APC to immediately forward Aro’s name as that party’s candidate for the 2027 senatorial poll.

He also ordered the INEC to publish Aro’s name as the lawful candidate of APC for the Kogi West Senatorial District election for the election.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the suit, which had the APC, Karimi and INEC as 1st to 3rd defendants, was initially filed in the Lokoja division of the Federal High Court, but later transferred to the Abuja division on grounds of insecurity.

Aro, the plaintiff, among others, prayed the court to declare him the winner of the primary election conducted on May 18.

He also urged the court to set aside APC’s subsequent submission of Karimi’s name to INEC as its candidate for next year’s senatorial election in Kogi West.

In their arguments, John Olusola Baiyeshea, SAN, for Karimi; Dayo Akinlaja, SAN, for INEC and A. G. Ivom for the APC, faulted the competence of the suit and urged the court to dismiss it for being statute barred.

Baiyeshea argued that while the primary was held on May 18 and Karimi’s name submitted to INEC on June 29, the plaintiff waited to file his suit in late July, outside the 14 days allowed in Section 285(9) of the Constitution for the filing of pre-election cases.

Plaintiff’s lawyer, Johnson Usman, SAN, faulted the arguments by defendants’ lawyers.

He argued that there are ample evidence, including the results his client got from INEC, to show that Bamidele won the election.

He prayed the court to declare his client the winner and order INEC to publish Bamidele’s name as the APC’s candidate for the senatorial district. (NAN)