The Rivers Local Government Election is overturned by the Appeal Court.
The ruling that prohibited the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from providing voter registration to the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) for the conduct of the state’s October 5 local government elections has been overturned by the Court of Appeal in Abuja.In a unanimous ruling, a three-member special panel of the court headed by Justice Onyekachi Otisi criticized the Federal High Court for preventing security firms from offering protection during the elections.
According to the tribunal, the lower court lacked the authority to consider a lawsuit challenging the Rivers State LG elections.
He emphasized that only federal, gubernatorial, and local council elections are covered by Section 28 of the Electoral Act, not state elections. Territory of the Federal Capital.As you may remember, the high court’s Justice Peter Lifu halted the conduct of the Rivers State LG election in a ruling on a lawsuit brought by the All Progressives Congress, or APC. The trial court ruled that the RSIEC had erred in scheduling the polling in the 23 local government regions without strictly adhering to the applicable regulations that govern such elections.
Justice Lifu pointed out that before scheduling the election, RSIEC neglected to publish the required notice, which was due in 90 days.
Furthermore, he maintained that before any legitimate date could be set for the polls, the update and revision of the voter registration to be utilized for the election should have been completed.
As a result, Justice Lifu directed INEC to hold off on providing RSIEC access to the certified voters registry until the applicable laws were fulfilled.
Additionally, he prohibited RSIEC from using any voter registrations obtained from INEC for the October 5 LG elections.
The APC asked the high court to stop the election in the substantive complaint, which was filed under the case number FHC/ABJ/CS/987/2024.
The Rivers APC’s acting chairman, Tony Okocha, deposed to the court in a 13-paragraph affidavit, stating that the suit was required because RSIEC had not strictly complied with the Electoral Act’s provisions regarding the management of the voter registration register meant to be used for the elections.Since RSIEC was not legally permitted to compile, maintain, update, and hold in its custody any other voter register, the deponent claimed that the Rivers Electoral Commission could only obtain and use voter registers that were compiled, maintained, updated, and kept in the custody of INEC for the purpose of conducting the LG polls.
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