The Supreme Court of Nigeria has granted the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, leave to delete twenty-two political parties from participating in the country electoral process.
The parties were among the 74 scrapped in 2020 by INEC following their dismal performances in the previous elections.
Delivering judgment in an appeal instituted by INEC against the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ejembi Eko voided and set aside a judgment of the Court of Appeal, Abuja division which had nullified the de-registration.
Justice Eko held that the Court 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.
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Specifically, the Supreme Court said that the Court of Appeal erred in law by raising the issue of fair hearing in favour of the political parties and declined to give opportunity to other respondents to address it on the matter in order to arrive at a just conclusion.
Justice Eko said that proceeding to give judgment in such a situation as done by the Court of Appeal ran foul of the pillar of the same fair hearing and as such, its findings and conclusion cannot stand.
INEC had on February, 2020 de-registered 74 political parties for failing to win any political office in the last general election.
