Appeal Court Affirms Labour Party Candidate As Winner Of House Of Reps Seat In Lagos

The Court of Appeal has affirmed Labour Party (LP) candidate, Jesse Okey-Joe Onuakalusi as the duly elected House of Representatives member for the Constituency ll Oshodi-Isolo, of Lagos State.

The court, sitting in Lagos State in a unanimous ruling by its three-member panel on Thursday, November 2, upheld Onuakalusi’s victory at the polls.

Earlier, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had declared the LP candidate winner of the February 25 election but the victory was challenged in court by the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Ganiyu Johnson.

Johnson filed a petition before the State and National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal on the grounds that “following the conduct of the primaries of LP on May 28th 2022, one Augustine Chiagozie Matthew emerged as the winner of the primaries.

“That LP refused/failed to forward the name of the said Augustine Chiagozie Matthew to INEC as its candidate.

“That the name of the said Augustine was not substituted or withdrawn.

“That Jesse Okey-Joe Onuakalusi‘s name is not on the register of members of the LP submitted to INEC as he was not duly sponsored as a candidate by the party.

“That Onuakalusi’s personal particulars in Form EC9 were not submitted prior to the conduct of the elections of Feb. 25, 2023.”

His petition was however dismissed by the Tribunal.

Not satisfied, he took the matter before the Appeal Court which has now ruled against him as well.

The three-member panel of the appellate court held that all the issues raised by Johnson were pre-election matters, which the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the LP candidate as the winner after he polled 29,386 votes to defeat Johnson, who garnered 16,650 votes in the election.