A Federal High Court in Abuja has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and 29 others to give reasons why the January 13 Anambra Central rerun should not be stopped.
Justice Babatunde Quadri was ruling on an ex-parte motion by Obiora Okonkwo yesterday.
Another judge of the Abuja Federal High Court, Justice John Tsoho, in a December 7 ruling, declared Okonkwo the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and ordered INEC to issue him a Certificate of Return.
INEC is yet to comply with the order, prompting him to file the ex-parte motion, seeking among others, to restrain INEC from proceeding with the rerun.
After listening to Okonkwo’s lawyer Sebastine Hon’s (SAN) argument, Justice Quadri ordered INEC and other respondents to give reasons why they should not be restrained from proceeding with the January 13 rerun.
He also ordered that court processes be served on the second to 29th defendants through the registered offices of their parties.
He adjourned till January 10 for further hearing.
But INEC has declared the January 13 date as ‘sacrosanct’.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr Nkwachkwu Orji, who addressed reporters yesterday, said the training of ad hoc workers had begun.
Anambra Central had been without a senator since 2015 when a Court of Appeal in Enugu sacked Uche Ekwunife and asked INEC to conduct a rerun within 90 days.
Ekwunife and her party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), were disqualified from participating in the rerun.
But on December 13, Justice John Tsoho, of an Abuja Federal High Court declared Obiora Okonkwo of the PDP the senator representing Anambra Central.
He asked INEC to issue Okonkwo a Certificate of Return and ordered the Senate president to swear him in.
But Orji yesterday said its Legal Department had studied the judgments and asked it to go ahead with the election.
“We are going ahead with the election as scheduled. We have started training ad hoc workers in that respect. Our legal department has asked us to go ahead and obey the Court of Appeal’s order against the Federal High court judgment.
“So we will conduct the election on January 13,” Orji said.