A Federal High Court in Abuja has rejected an application to set aside its November 4 judgment recognising the candidates produced by the Dr. Adekunle Rufai Omo-Aje leadership of the Action Alliance (AA) party.
The court had, in the November 4 judgment, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to accept the candidates submitted for next year’s general election by the Omo-Aje leadership of the AA and reject those produced by Kenneth Udeze, among who is Major Hamzat Al-Mustapha (retd.).
In a ruling yesterday, Justice Zainab Abubakar held that the application filed by Udeze (who was sacked as Chairman of the party) was unmeritorious and proceeded to dismissed it.
Udeze, whose suspension and expulsion as the AA Chairman had been upheld in two judgments of the Court of Appeal, had applied to the Federal High Court in Abuja to set aside the November 4, 2022 judgment, claiming it was obtained by fraud and that he was still the party’s National Chairman.
In the November 4 judgment (which was also delivered by Justice Abubakar), the court ordered INEC to accept the list of candidates submitted to it by the Omo-Aje leadership of the AA and to discountenance the candidates submitted by Udeze, including Al-Mustpha, the party’s presidential candidate.
In her ruling yesterday, Justice Abubakar held that with the two subsisting judgments of the Court of Appeal and another decision by a Federal High Court in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Udeze cannot lawfully lay claim to being the party’s national chairman.
The two judgments of the Court of Appeal were delivered on January 7 and November 11, this year, while the ruling by the Federal High Court in Abeokuta was delivered on September 8, 2022 by Justice J. O. Abdulmalik.
