LASIEC: Court threatens to withhold INEC voters register if…

A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has threatened to deny the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) access to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) register.

The judge made the ruling Wednesday following Alani’s June 24 ex parte motion argued through his counsel Tope Alabi, seeking four reliefs.

It was also in respect of constitutional logjams that has characterized the coming July 24 chairmanship and council polls in Lagos.

Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke in the ruling gave LASIEC seven days to show cause why it should not grant a prayer by an All Progressives Congress (APC) chairmanship aspirant Raheem Rasaki Alani, seeking to restrain INEC from making the register for Lagos’ 20 Local Government Areas (LGA) available.

Alani, a resident of and registered voter in Agege LGA, is the Plaintiff/Applicant while INEC and LASIEC are the 1st and 2nd defendants in the suit marked FHC/L/CS/677/2021.

He argued in his affidavit of urgency that LASIEC ought to conduct the election in accordance with the “constitutionally-recognised” LGAs in Lagos, and not based on the 57 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) created by the state, that it intends to use.

“I know that the 57 LCDAs wherein the 2nd defendant intends to conduct elections are a product of the unconstitutional Balkanisation of the 20 constitutionally-recognised LGAs in Lagos State,” he said.

Arguing further, he insisted that the Balkanisation meant that he and many others had been “unconstitutionally excluded from Agege LGA and put within the unconstitutionally created Orile-Agege LCDA,” and he would be denied the right to vote or be voted for, as well as be “robbed of voting to elect the chairman of Agege LGA or to be elected” its chairman.”

Alani therefore prayed the court for an order restraining INEC from “giving, submitting and/or making” the register available to LASIEC for its use in the Chairmanship and Councillorship elections based on the 57 LGAs and LCDAs “or any other number of LGAs in excess of the 20 LGAs pending the determination of the Motion on Notice.”

He also prayed for an order restraining INEC from giving LASIEC any logistical support for the elections based on the 57 LGAs and LCDAs.

Lastly, he sought an order stopping LASIEC from preparing for the polls based on the 57 LCDAs.

“Being an election matter and the process is ongoing, I shall give the defendant-respondent seven days within which the defendant shall show cause why the order should not be made against them,” Justice Aneke held in a bench ruling

After ordering that all parties in the case be served, the Judge has since adjourned till Wednesday, July 4, 2021.