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•Obi’s supporters demand probe into alleged lists’ altering
From Sola Ojo and Okwe Obi, Abuja
Supporters and candidates of the Julius Abure-led Labour Party (LP), alongside Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), yesterday protested at the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja, demanding the inclusion of the party in the upcoming August 16 bye-elections.
The protesters, who arrived in several buses despite an early morning downpour, carried placards with inscriptions, such as ‘INEC, who is using you against LP?’ ‘Mahmoud, stop destroying democracy in Nigeria,’ and ‘Tell INEC to obey court orders,’ to drive home their grievances.
They accused INEC of excluding LP candidates from the polls despite a court order affirming Julius Abure as the legitimate national chairman of the party.
Speaking on behalf of the protesters, the party’s Deputy National Youth Leader, Dr. Barry Avotu-Johnson, said the commission must respect the court ruling and upload the names of the LP candidates.
“We are here to demand that the INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, should respect the court order recognising Julius Abure as our national chairman.
“We are also demanding that the names of our validly nominated candidates be uploaded for the bye-elections.
“This is about justice and the rule of law, which democracy depends on,” Avotu-Johnson said.
Also speaking, a representative of the party in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr. Peter Ugwu, lamented that while other political parties had their candidates listed on the INEC’s portal, those of the Labour Party were conspicuously missing.
“We conducted primaries and produced candidates like other parties. It is unfair that INEC has failed to upload our names. This anomaly should be corrected immediately,” Ugwu insisted.
Mr. Peter Piper, who spoke on behalf of the CSOs, emphasised that the protest was about protecting democratic values.
“This is about democracy and the rule of law. An injury to one is an injury to all,” he declared.
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Responding to the protesters, INEC National Commissioner, Abdullahi Zuru, who represented the INEC chairman, assured them that their grievances would be conveyed to the leadership of the commission.
Meanwhile, supporters of the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, under the aegis of Northern Obidient Youth Assembly (NOYA), have charged members of the National Assembly to probe alleged manipulation of candidate lists and judicial reversals on electoral matters.
It claimed that a coordinated scheme, involving unlawful disqualification of candidates and delayed court-ordered corrections, have turned Nigeria’s electoral process into a ‘cash-and-court racket’ undermining internal party democracy and eroding public trust in elections.
Their outcry followed the exclusion of candidates submitted by the Abure-led faction from the final list published by the INEC for the August 16 bye-elections.
Its Coordinator, Abdullahi Suleiman, in a statement yesterday, said this was only the latest instance in a growing trend, where lawfully nominated candidates were delisted, only to be reinstated by courts after significant political damage had been done.
Suleiman said the manipulation of candidate lists under the guise of court compliance had created a two-tiered justice system, one for politically connected candidates who can afford expensive legal battles, and another for ordinary aspirants denied timely access to justice.
“The corrected names often appear so late that meaningful participation in elections becomes nearly impossible. It is a profit-driven racket at the expense of democracy. Lawfully nominated candidates are either omitted or replaced on party lists in violation of internal party democracy, only to be reinstated later by court rulings.”
According to him, this pattern is not due to administrative errors but deliberate manipulation, saying “they are politically influenced moves that force candidates into costly and time-consuming legal battles just to reclaim their rightful positions.”
He further alleged that some corrupt elements within the system receive tens of millions of Naira to alter candidate lists, confident that the courts will later reverse the fraud without accountability.
He warned that unless the trend was urgently addressed, the integrity of the 2027 general elections could be compromised.
The group called on the National Assembly to order a forensic audit of the alterations made in the candidate lists, and investigate any financial trail linking these reversals to corrupt practices.
