The Federal High Court sitting in Umuahia, Abia State, on Friday ordered the removal of Section 84 (12) of the newly-amended Electoral Act which President Muhammadu Buhari had written to the National Assembly to delete.
President Muhammadu Buhari had urged the National Assembly to delete Section 84(12) of the amended Electoral Act, stating it violates the constitution and also breached the rights of government appointees.
The president had written a letter to the National Assembly seeking amendment by way of deleting the provision, an amendment the Senate rejected in plenary.
However, in the suit number FHC/UM/CS/26/2022 filed by a lawyer, Nduka Edede of Action Alliance, the plaintiff has tried to stop that move by the president and the Federal Government by challenging that.
However, the court, in its judgment delivered by Justice Evelyn Anyadike, ruled that the section was “unconstitutional, invalid, illegal, null, void and of no effect whatsoever,” hence the need to be struck off as it cannot stand “as it is in violation of the clear provisions of the constitution.”
According to sections 66(1)(f), 107(1)(f), 137(1)(f) and 182(1)(f) of the 1999 Constitution, appointees of government seeking to contest elections will have 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.
The judge had also ordered the Attorney General of the Federation to forthwith delete the said Subsection 12 of Section 84 from the body of the Electoral Act, 2022.
Counsel to the plaintiff, Emeka Ozoani, told newsmen after the judgment that by this judgment, the National Assembly has been stopped from making any amendments to the section “as the import of this judgment is that Section 84(12) of the Electoral Act is no longer in existence or part of the Electoral Act
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