Following the judgment of the Federal High Court sitting in Kaduna who ruled that the case filed by the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and its Governorship candidate, Sen Suleiman Othman Hunkuyi against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for listing Sen Uba Sani as Governorship candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and 34 candidates for state Kaduna State constituencies is status bar, the party and it’s gubernatorial candidate has said it would challenge the ruling at the Court of Appeal.
NNPP and its Governorship candidate averred in their suit that the APC as a party did not conduct a valid ward congresses that produced delegates that participated in the primaries that produced the gubernatorial candidate and State House of Assembly candidates and should not have been listed as for the 2023 general elections.
Addressing a press conference at the State party secretariat in company of the party secretary Yahaya Shenko, Hunkuyi clarified that the party did not drag APC or its candidates to court but that it sue INEC for listing the candidates produced from what it described as a faulty ward congresses and primaries.
According to the gubernatorial hopeful, democracy requires a free, fair and credible election adding that it cannot bear fruits unless there is transparency in manner and action of INEC in the conduct of elections in Nigeria.
“NNPP rely on the content of legislation of the electoral act chapter 29 which states very clearly that political parties must submit names or names of candidates who emerged through a valid primary.
“The Federal High Court in its ruling declared that our matter is status bar, that the timing between delegate election and the primaries and when the case should have been filed was not followed but the fact is that NNPP did not drag APC to court but INEC for interpretation of electoral act 84 subsection 13.
“We filed our case against INEC 14 days after INEC published names of the candidates on the 22nd July, 2022,” Hunkuyi said.
Corroborating the gubernatorial candidate’s position, the NNPP State Secretary, Yahaya Shenko said, in the eyes of the law, APC in Kaduna State have no candidates in the 2023 general elections.
