#NigeriaElections2023: INEC can’t work with Lagos park committee, MC Oluomo, court rules

A federal high court in Lagos has stopped the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from engaging the services of the Lagos State Parks Management Committee (LSPMC) for the distribution of election materials and ad-hoc staff in the state.

Chukwujekwu Aneke, presiding judge, gave a perpetual injunction barring the commission on Friday following a suit filed by the Labour Party and four others.

The court had, on Monday restrained INEC from taking any steps or further steps whatsoever in furtherance of the engagement of the committee led by MC Oluomo pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.

Reacting to the ruling, Festus Okoye, INEC national commissioner, told TheCable that the judgment has nothing to do with the commission as it does not have a contract with MC Oluomo but with the state’s park committee.

However, in the latest sitting of the suit marked FHC/L/CS//2023, Abbas Ibrahim, the lawyer to the plaintiffs, prayed for “a declaration that the appointment, partnership, or contracting of Musiliu Akinsanya popularly known as MC Oluomo-led Lagos State Parks Management Committee (established by Governor Babajide SanwoOlu, the APC gubernatorial candidate in Lagos State) and any of its members and/or drivers by INEC to distribute election materials and personnel in Lagos State will give room for election sabotage, manipulation, and rigging in favour of the APC and consequently unlawful and illegal”.

INEC did not file any response to the suit and was not represented by a lawyer in the hearing.

Delivering judgement, Aneke restrained INEC “from contracting, partnering or appointing Musiliu Akinsanya popularly known as MC Oluomo, Lagos State Parks Management Committee or any of its members and/or drivers by INEC to distribute 2023 election materials and personnel in Lagos State”.

LSPMC was established by Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos, in 2022 following a ban on the operations of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN).

The park committee is headed by MC Oluomo.