The Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to remove Hamza Al-Mustapha’s name as the presidential candidate of the Action Alliance (AA) for the 2023 general elections.
Mr Al-Mustapha was the Chief Security Officer to Nigeria’s late dictator, Sani Abacha, who died in office in June 1998.
The judge, Zainab Abubakar, gave the order removing Mr Al-Mustapha’s name as a presidential candidate, in a judgement on Friday.
Premium Times reported from the verdict on Monday that the judge invalidated all the lists of nominees, including Mr Al-Mustapha’s name, submitted to INEC by a factional leader of the party, Kenneth Udeze.
The court held that Mr Udeze, whose faction of AA presented Mr Al-Mustapha to INEC as the party’s presidential candidate, was not the authentic leader of the party, so his lists of nominees for all offices were also not valid.
The judge upheld the plaintiff, Adekunle Omoaje, who instituted the suit, as the authentic national chairman of the party, and his lists of nominees as the party’s set of valid candidates for various offices for the forthcoming 2023 general elections.
Mr Al-Mustapha had emerged the party’s presidential candidate at a party convention held in June in Abuja.
He defeated Samson Odupitan to emerge the party’s presidential candidate in the primary election.
His name and the rest of the party’s nominees vying for various offices in the upcoming 2023 general elections were subsequently submitted to INEC by Mr Udeze.
But Mr Omoaje filed his suit on 30 September, urging the court to compel INEC to recognise his list of candidates over the one submitted by his rival, Mr Udeze, for the next year’s general elections.
Upholding the plaintiff’s case, the judge ordered INEC to disregard Mr Udeze’s list of candidates, including Mr Al-Mustapha’s name as the party’s presidential flagbearer, submitted for the 2023 general elections.
The judge ordered INEC to, instead, “to upload and display the names of the applicant (Mr Omoaje)’s candidates for the 2023 general elections which had been forwarded to the respondent (INEC) as its candidate(s) for the said general election.”
