Update: INEC Maintains SUPREME Court Ruling On Rivers APC

Eniola Olayemi

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has emphasised that it will uphold the Supreme Court ruling on its decision not to accommodate any All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate from Rivers State in the ballot paper for the coming elections.

Speaking yesterday during the daily briefing to update Nigerians and the international community on this weekend’s poll, the commission’s chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, insisted that since the highest court in the land had ruled on it, the commission has no other option than to obey the order.

The apex court upheld the order of a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt nullifying the APC primaries in Rivers, as “the primaries were held in disobedience to a court judgement barring the party from conducting congresses pending the determination of a suit filed by 22 aggrieved members of the party.”

In its judgement, apex court set aside the ruling of the Court of Appeal, Port Harcourt, which in October 2018 upturned the interlocutory order of the high court. A five-man panel of justices the Supreme Court, in a unanimous verdict, said the judgement sought to be upturned was entered by consent and could not be appealed as a matter of right.

“On the issues in Rivers, I think the Supreme Court has a number of pronouncements on that matter. And for that reason, the commission has taken the position of the Supreme Court. Under our constitution, the Supreme Court is the last court of resort for any citizen. There must be an end to litigations, as lawyers say,” he said.

On the readiness of the commission to safeguard the voting materials, the INEC boss said: “I want to assure you that much of our information and communication technology (ICT) facilities are offline. It is almost impossible to attack something that is offline. You can only attack something that is online. But I have taken note of what you have said and we will continue to strengthen security around the ICT. At the moment, we have no reason for any panic about any possibility of attack on the facility or compromise on our ICT facilities,” he assured.