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Ahead of the Bauchi State local government election slated for today, October 17 2020, the Federal High Court sitting in Bauchi has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) and the State Independent Electoral Commission (BASIEC) to include 19 deregistered political parties for participation.
The court order is coming on the heels of a suit filed by the plaintiffs challenging the decision of the INEC and BASIEC to exclude the parties from participating in the election.
The Federal High Court in the state on Thursday had affirmed the order of the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja.
The presiding Judge, Hassan Dikko in his judgement said, “I hereby grant leave of mandamus to compel the respondents to comply with the judgement of the Court of Appeal in Abuja in suit number: CA/ABJ/CV/507/2020 enrolled on 19th day of August 2020.”
Dikko ordered that the copy of the judgement to the respondents in their various addresses and fixed November 2, 2020, for the hearing of the case.
It will be recalled that a judgement was passed by Justice M.B. Dongban-Mensem and four others in the Appeal Court on August 13 to reinstate the parties.
The justice argued that since the second respondent (BASIEC) admitted that the political parties were registered parties and could not justify their reasons for deregistration, the parties should be reinstated.
The aggrieved political parties that were deregistered by INEC for inability to win an elective office during the 2019 general elections had obtained the order of reinstatement at the Court of Appeals, Abuja while accusing the electoral umpires of failure to comply with the order.
