Despite the court ruling that statutory delegates were qualified to participate in congresses and conventions of political parties, the leadership of the All Progressives Congress has announced that statutory delegates won’t participate in the June 6 primary of the party.
The National Chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adamu, made the clarification at the APC secretariat on Saturday.
The development is coming in the wake of a court injunction, which ruled in favour of the inclusion of the delegates.
A Federal High Court sitting in Kano had ruled that statutory delegates were constitutionally qualified to take part in all meetings, congresses and conventions of any registered political party in Nigeria.
The suit challenging the disenfranchisement of statutory delegates from participating at the primaries was filed by three aggrieved aspirants of the party namely Senator Mas’ud El-Jibrin Doguwa, Habibu Sani and Bilyaminu Yusuf Shin’Kafi.
Delivering judgment on the suit on Friday, 3rd June, 2022, the presiding judge, Hon. Justice A.M Liman, held 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(iv)(c) of the All Progressive Congress (APC) Constitution, which allow Statutory Delegation to vote at convention, congress or meeting.”
A defiant Adamu, however, stood his ground on Saturday and insisted that no statutory delegate would participate at the convention.
He told our correspondent that as a law practitioner, he understood the interpretation well enough not to allow the delegates to take part at the primary.
“I am a lawyer; we have served notice of appeal and the matter is in the court and as far as we are concerned, this convention is concerned, statutory delegates are excluded,” he said.
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