The Senate and House of Representatives on Wednesday resolved to appeal judgement directing the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) to delete Section 84 (12) of the newly signed Electoral Act.
This followed a deliberation on the court order during plenary in both chambers of the National Assembly in Abuja.
The senator’s resolution was sequel to a motion sponsored by Senator George Sekibo (Rivers East) and 80 others titled “Urgent need to appeal judgement of the Federal High Court Umuahia on suit no FHC/UM/CS/26/2022 on Section 84(12) of the Electoral Act, 2022.”
The lawmakers, in their resolution, agreed to appeal the judgement in a suit marked FHC/MU/SC/26/2022 to set aside the decision of the court.
On their part, members of the House of Representatives argued that the clause in question is directed at political appointees and not civil servants.
They insisted that the court passed a judgement on a matter which was not included in the Electoral Act passed by the National Assembly.
They also questioned why the National Assembly was not joined as a respondent to the suit, stressing that the action of the judge was an ‘aberration’.
The members in their resolution 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 officeholders, 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.
