Umeh give reasons for appealing judgement on his LP candidature

The candidate of the Labour Party for Anambra Central Senatorial District in the coming election, Senator Victor Umeh has stated why he is appealing the Federal High Court ruling that sacked him as the party’s candidate.

A Federal High Court sitting in Awka and presided over by Justice H.I. Nganjiwa last week sacked Umeh as a senatorial candidate of the Labour Party, LP, insisting he did not formally resign from the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA.

Umeh who spoke to newsmen on Friday said he is challenging the judgement on two grounds.

“There are two principal errors in the judgement. One was that those who took me to court, that is PDP and Senator Uche Ekwunife had no locus to challenge my nomination in the Labour Party.

“The law is firmly settled that only candidates or aspirants that participated in the party’s primary have the locus standi to challenge the outcome of the primary election.

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“It is not open to members of the party that didn’t take part in the primaries to institute any action. How much more non-members of the party, and in this case, PDP and Uche Ekwunife?” he said.

Continuing, he affirmed: “Secondly, from the processes they served us, the suit bore [the] date of the process and we raised preliminary objections on that ground that it was status barred and clearly more than 14 days from the date of their own complaint.

“Their complaint was that INEC published my name on the 20th of September 2022 and that was when they became aware that I am the candidate of the Labour Party. So counting 14 days from 25th of September, would have been 3rd of October for you to file within time.

“You can’t file one month ago and come and pay later, one month after and say you filed one month ago. The day you paid is the date you filed and the Supreme Court had resolved that long ago.”

Umeh cited several judgements from across the country, including one delivered by Justice Nganjiwa himself, which supported that candidates of other parties, and their party cannot challenge the nomination of candidates in other parties.

The candidate said Ekwunife was only being jittery because she knew that she would lose the forthcoming election.