The House of Representatives says it will appeal the judgment of a Federal High Court Umuahia asking the Attorney-General to delete section 84(12) of the newly passed Electoral Act 2022.
The lawmakers took the decision during its plenary session on Wednesday.
The members also asked the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami, to hold action on the issue until all appeal processes are concluded.
Recall that Justice Evelyn Anyadike of the Federal High Court, Umuahia, Abia State, had last Friday declared Section 84(12) of the newly amended Electoral Act 2022 as unconstitutional, invalid, illegal, null, void and of no effect whatsoever.
According to Section 84(12), except a political office holder or public servant resigned from office three months before the commencement of party primaries, he or she, including ministers, commissioners, or other office holders, was barred from taking part as delegates in primaries of political parties, and therefore cannot be candidate for elections.
Justice Evelyn in her ruling directed that the section “be struck down as it cannot stand when it is in violation of the clear provisions of the Constitution.” She ordered the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) to “forthwith delete the said sub-section 12 of section 84 from the body of the Electoral Act, 2022”.
The judge while delivering judgment in a suit marked FHC/UM/CS/26/2022 held that Sections 66(1)(f), 107(1)(f), 137(1)(f) and 182(1)(f) of the 1999 Constitution already stipulated that appointees of government seeking to contest elections were only to resign at least 30 days to the date of the election and that any other law that mandated such appointees to resign or leave office at any time before that was unconstitutional, invalid, illegal null and void to the extent of its inconsistency to the clear provisions of the Constitution.
