Supreme Court affirms INEC’s de-registration of 22 parties  

The Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the de-registration of 22 parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The 22 were part of the 74 parties INEC de-registered in 2020 after their poor performance in the 2019 general elections.

Justice Ejembi Eko in a judgment on INEC’s appeal challenging the judgment of the Court of Appeal which upturned the de-registration of the parties, nullified Court of Appeal, Abuja division, judgement.

The Judge upheld the appeal by the INEC as being meritorious and allowed; noting that the Court of Appeal on its own raised the issue of lack of fair hearing in favour of the 22 scrapped parties and arrived at a conclusion without hearing from other parties in the matter.

The Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal took the issue of fair hearing out of the contemplation of the notice of appeal filed by the parties but refused to do the needful in order to be fair to others in the matter.

The Supreme Court asserted that the Court of Appeal erred in law by raising the issue of fair hearing in favour of the parties and declined to give an opportunity to other respondents to address it on the matter, in order to arrive at a just conclusion.

Justice Eko stated that proceeding to give judgment in such a situation, as done by the Court of Appeal, ran afoul of the pillar of the same fair hearing and as such, its findings and conclusion could stand.

INEC de-registered 74 political parties on February 6, 2020, for failing to win any political office in the last general elections held in 2019.

The action was challenged at the Federal High Court, Abuja, by 22 parties.