{"id":127274,"date":"2026-05-27T06:27:55","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T05:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=127274"},"modified":"2026-05-27T06:27:55","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T05:27:55","slug":"another-court-approves-inecs-power-to-issue-election-guidelines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/news\/another-court-approves-inecs-power-to-issue-election-guidelines\/","title":{"rendered":"Another court approves INEC&#8217;s power to issue election guidelines"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">By John Azu<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">A Federal High Court in Abuja has approved the powers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to issue guidelines and time table for the conduct of elections.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Justice James Omotosho on Tuesday held that INEC can also alter the timetable to give effect to the constitutional provisions.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;This honourable court hereby declares that the timetable for the conduct of the 2027 general election issued by the defendant is valid and legally issued, stating timeframe within which political parties are to hold their primaries and<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">stating timeframe for the submission of membership registers of political parties,&#8221; he ruled.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;This honourable court hereby declares that the defendant cannot lawfully abridge or vary the 90 days period for substitution of candidates under Section 31 of the Electoral Act, 2026.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;This honourable court hereby declares that the defendant cannot abridge the time stipulated in section 29(1) of the Electoral Act 2026 given to political parties to submit the names of their candidates atleast 120 days to the date of election<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;This honourable court hereby declares that the defendant is hereby ordered to amend the Election Timetable&#8221;.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">The judgement is coming fee hours after INEC appealed an earlier judgement of the high court which nullified its election guidelines as a breach of Section 29(1) of the Electoral Act 2026 in a suit by Young Party.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">The latest suit was filed by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) contending that INEC does not possess the power to fix or prescribe time table for the conduct of party primaries.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">The party, in a suit filed on the 9th of April, 2026 against raised five questions for determination by the court.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">However, INEC&#8217;s counsel Alex Izinyon (SAN) argued that the cause of action had become statutte barred.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">He further submitted that the electoral body has the power donated by the constitution and the Electoral Act, 2026, adding that a host of decided cases of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, allow it to make time table to regulate the conduct of election.<\/div>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By John Azu A Federal High Court in Abuja has approved the powers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to issue guidelines and time table for the conduct of&hellip;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - 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