Benue election: Supreme Court affirms Hembe as Labour Party’s governorship candidate

Sunday Ejike

The Supreme Court has affirmed one Honourable Herman Lorwase Hembe as the lawful governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP) for the March 18, 2023, gubernatorial election in Benue state.

The Apex Court, in a judgement delivered on Thursday, dismissed an appeal brought before it by Benjamin Lorlumum and one other, seeking disqualification of the respondent from the governorship race on various grounds.

Justice Heleen Morenikeji Ogunwumiju in a unanimous judgment of the Court dismissed Lorlumum’s appeal for lacking merit and legal backing.

The appellant who is a governorship aspirant of the Labour Party in Benue state and one other person had brought the appeal marked SC/CV/344/2023 against Hembe, LP and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The grouse of the two appellants was that the LP governorship candidate was still a member of the All Progressive Congress (APC) at the time he contested and won the gubernatorial primary election of the Labour Party.

The appellants specifically accused Hembe of double participation in primary elections organized by the APC and the Labour Party on the same date and time and also for allegedly parading dual membership of both APC and LP.

They had asked a Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal to invoke relevant laws to nullify the emergence of Hembe as a governorship candidate on the strength of their allegations.

Both the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal had dismissed the suit upon their findings that the governorship candidate resigned from the APC before crossing over to Labour Party and winning the gubernatorial primary election.

Dissatisfied with the concurrent decisions of the two lower courts, Lorlumum moved to the Supreme Court insisting that the two lower courts did not consider all the issues he raised against Hembe, especially about membership of two political parties at the same time.

He had asked the Apex Court to set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal delivered on February 10, 2023, and declare him the “sole candidate that participated in the Labour Party’s gubernatorial primary election held on June 9, 2022”.

But, the Supreme Court in its judgment held that the respondent sufficiently proved that he resigned from the APC through affidavit evidence and a letter of resignation.

Besides, Justice Ogunwumiju said that the law did not sanction participation in two primary elections once the participant was not in two political parties at the same time.

Justice Ogunwumiju, while upholding the concurrent findings of the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal said that there was no reason to upset the findings and subsequently dismissed the case of the appellant for lacking in merit and upheld the nomination of Hembe as lawful for participation in the March 18 gubernatorial election in Benue State as the candidate of the Labour Party.

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