Justice Bala Usman of the Federal High Court in Jalingo has reaffirmed Senator Emmanuel Bwacha as the duly elected candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) for the March 18 governorship poll.

The court reaffirmed the candidature of Bwacha while ruling on the case filed by the APC asking the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to remove its candidate from its portal or ballot paper ahead of the governorship election.

Justice Usman stressed that it is imperative to uphold the judgment of Supreme Court which has a consequential order instructing the APC to conduct a fresh primary where Emmanuel emerged as the candidate of APC.

He explained that if anyone was dissatisfied with the conduct of the primary it should be an aggrieved party to file a pre-election matter and where no one did to challenge the outcome of the primary, Bwacha remained the legitimate candidate.

The counsel for the APC while fielding questions from newsmen shortly after the court judgement stressed that INEC has no powers to exercise the powers of a court by delisting Bwacha’s name from its website.

However counsel for INEC declined speaking to the press.