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INEC Not Obeying Court Nullification Of Fresh Party’s Deregistration – Lawyer

The Fresh Democratic Party has decried the refusal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to allow candidates of the party take part in elections … Continue reading INEC Not Obeying Court Nullification Of Fresh Party’s Deregistration – Lawyer


Kola DopemuThe Fresh Democratic Party has decried the refusal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to allow candidates of the party take part in elections despite a court ruling that nullified the deregistration of the party.

The Party’s legal adviser, Mr Kola Dopemu, told Channels Television on Sunday that the party had presented their candidates in the Anambra governorship election that was held in the last quarter of 2013 but the electoral commission refused to give them the necessary documents.

Mr Dopemu expressed sadness over the issue “in a time and age that everybody is talking about the rule of law”.

“An institution established under the constitution of Nigeria is flagrantly disobeying a court order.

“It is a very sad situation because we participated full well in the court case. INEC was represented, the government was represented by the Attorney General and the National Assembly was a party. Unfortunately, when the judgment was delivered on July 29, 2013, INEC was routed because everybody knows that what happened between us was an illegal thing. INEC was not acting in accordance with the constitution,” he said.

Playing A God

The electoral body is insisting that it had appeled the court judgment but Mr Dopemu said that the electoral body only filed a notice of appeal and that the notice was filed after the window period.

He further explained that “when a notice of appeal is filed, it only shows an intention to appeal the decision.

“After filing that there are certain procedures that must be followed but INEC went to sleep and that appeal is dead now”.

He said that his party had refused to go back to court to coerce INEC to observe the court ruling, as doing so would make INEC claim “the case is sub judice”.

Mr Dopemu further alleged that someone was playing a god on the issue, calling on the INEC to obey court order.