Court orders statutory delegates to vote at APC presidential primary

A Federal High Court sitting in Kano has ruled that statutory delegates cannot be barred from voting in the presidential primaries of the All Progressive Congress next week.

Presiding Judge, Justice A.M. Liman gave the ruling in a case brought before him by Senator Mas’ud Doguwa, Hon. Habibu Sani and Hon. Bilyaminu Shinkafi.

In the case which had the senate president, APC national chairman, Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Independent National Electoral Commission as respondents, the plaintiffs asked the court to rule that statutory delegates cannot be stopped from voting at the primaries by virtue of Section 84(8) of the amended Electoral Act.

In his ruling, Justice Liman agreed that the statutory delegates cannot be stopped from voting in the primaries.

“That Section 84(8) cannot be interpreted to have excluded statutory delegates from voting at the convention, congress or meeting by virtue of Section 223 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and Article 20(vi)(c) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Constitution, which allow Statutory Delegation to vote at convention, congress or meeting,” he ruled.

WesternPost had earlier reported that the National Assembly mistakenly deleted the words “in addition to” which had added the statutory delegates to the elected delegates to form the electors at the parties’ convention.

Both chambers however reconvened to add the missing words, but President Muhammadu Buhari failed to assent to the amendment, shutting out statutory delegates from electing party candidates.