The Attorney-General of the Federation has secured an order of court to immediately delete Section 84 (12) of the amended new Electoral Act.
The order was given on Friday by a Federal High Court sitting in Umuahia, Abia State and presided over by Justice Evelyn Anyadike.
Justice Anyadike held that the section was unconstitutional, invalid, illegal, null, void and of no effect whatsoever and cannot stand, as it is in violation of the clear provisions of the Constitution.
The section states that “no political appointee at any level shall be voting delegate or be voted for at the Convention or Congress of any political party for the purpose of the nomination of candidates for any election”.
In the suit marked FHC/UM/CS/26/2022, Justice Anyadike further stated 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.
The section was the part, President Buhari, while signing the Electoral Bill into law last month, had requested the National Assembly to delete section.
Buhari had said that “Section 84 (12) constitutes a disenfranchisement of serving political office holders from voting or being voted for at conventions or congresses of any political party, for the purpose of the nomination of candidates for any election in cases where it holds earlier than 30 days to the national election”.
The president’s request was sacked by the federal lawmakers who refused to consider the bill seeking the amendment of the section on the argument that an amendment would be going against the civil service norms and would be injurious to the well-being of the society.