This also applies to other candidates who emerged in primaries conducted by the sacked National Chairman of the party, Chief Kenneth Udeze.
An Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal has dismissed an application seeking to recognise Hamza Al-Mustapha as the presidential candidate of the Action Alliance (AA).
This also applies to other candidates who emerged in primaries conducted by the sacked National Chairman of the party, Chief Kenneth Udeze.
Al-Mustapha was the Chief Security Officer to the late Nigerian military dictator, General Sani Abacha.
Udeze had sought the order of the appellate court in appeal No: CA/ABJ/PRE/ROA/CV/1472MI/2022, to reverse the nullification of Al-Mustapha and other candidates who emerged in primaries conducted by the party while he was its national chairman.
Delivering judgment in the appeal, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, who led the three-man panel of the court, rejected the application.
The panel described the application as defective and incompetent.
Al-Mustapha, a former aide to the late Abacha, on June 9, 2022, emerged as the winner of the presidential primary election conducted by Udeze’s faction in Abuja, winning with a total of 506 votes to defeat Samson Odupitan, his only contender.
But ruling on the appeal, Justice Dongban-Mensem held that it was wrong for Udeze to have initiated the appeal in the name of the party and also listed the party as a respondent in the lead ruling.
The court observed that the political party could not be an appellant and a respondent in the same appeal.
Udeze's appeal followed the ruling of a Federal High Court on November 4, 2022 that voided the June primaries he oversaw.
The lower court had in its judgement recognised the candidates produced by the party’s leadership of Dr Adekunle Rufai Omo-Aje.
Justice Zainab Abubakar of the Abuja Federal High Court gave the earlier judgment.
The suspension and expulsion of Udeze as the AA chairman had been upheld in two judgments of the Court of Appeal.
He had applied to the Federal High Court, Abuja, to set aside the November 4 judgment, claiming it was fraudulently obtained.
The court had ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, 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, who has emerged as its presidential candidate.