Court disqualifies all Labour Party candidates for Senate in Rivers

A Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has disqualified all three Senate candidates of the Labour Party (LP) in the state.

The affected candidates are from the Obio/Akpor, Port Harcourt City 1 and Port Harcourt City 2 Federal constituencies.

The judgement was delivered on Friday by Justice Stephen Daylop-Pam, in a case instituted by the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which argued that the LP did not comply with the new Electoral Act in their selection of candidates.

According to Ripples Nigeria, the PDP led government had urged the court to void the LP primary in which the candidates were elected and direct the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to disqualify the candidates.

While delivering his judgment, Justice Dalyop-Pam concurred with the originating summon of the PDP challenging the competence of the LP to nominate candidates in the primary election in which INEC did not monitor.

The presiding judge also ruled that the PDP had proven that INEC did not monitor the primary election of the affected constituencies and therefore, ordered INEC not to recognise the candidates for the 2023 general election.