[BREAKING] Reps Seat: What Appeal Court Just Did To Labour Party’s Win In Oshodi-Isolo

[BREAKING] Reps Seat: What Appeal Court Just Did To Labour Party’s Win In Oshodi-Isolo

On Thursday, November 2, the State and National Assembly Appeal Court, convened at the Court of Appeal in Lagos, affirmed Jesse Okey-Joe Onuakalusi of the Labour Party (LP) as the duly elected House of Representatives member for Constituency ll Oshodi-Isolo, Lagos.

The court, in a unanimous verdict, dismissed the appeal filed by Ganiyu Johnson, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

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The three-member panel determined that all the concerns raised by Johnson pertained to pre-election matters, falling outside the court’s jurisdiction.

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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the LP candidate the winner, garnering 29,386 votes, while Johnson secured 16,650 votes in the election.

Johnson, a former Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, had represented the constituency for the preceding four years after clinching the APC ticket in 2019.

Expressing dissatisfaction with the results, Johnson lodged a petition against INEC, which was listed as the primary respondent, along with Onuakalusi and LP as the second and third respondents, respectively.

Johnson’s petition listed several grounds, including “That following the conduct of the primaries of LP on May 28th 2022, one Augustine Chiagozie Matthew emerged as the winner of the primaries.

“That LP refused/failed to forward the name of the said Augustine Chiagozie Matthew to INEC as its candidate.

“That Jesse Okey-Joe Onuakalusi‘s name is not on the register of members of the LP submitted to INEC as he was not duly sponsored as a candidate by the party.

“That Onuakalusi’s personal particulars in Form EC9 were not submitted prior to the conduct of the elections of Feb. 25, 2023.”

To support his petition, the petitioner presented three witnesses and submitted various documents.

In its extensive 100-page judgment on the petition, the tribunal concurred with the 2nd respondent’s argument that the dispute regarding the primaries that led to the selection of Matthew had already been conclusively addressed by the Federal High Court and the Supreme Court, and therefore could not be resurrected before the tribunal.

Regarding the matter of the second respondent’s membership, the Tribunal determined it to be both a pre and post-election concern.

Furthermore, it affirmed that the Secretary of the Okota Ward 3 was in a better position to provide testimony, as the question of membership had long been established as an internal matter within a political party.

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