News Investigators/ The Federal High Court, Abuja has upheld the exclusion of Labour Party (LP) candidates from the area council elections sheduled to take place on Feb. 21 in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Delivering judgment on Wednesday in the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2110/2025,
Justice Peter Lifu declined to order the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to accept or publish the party’s list of candidates for the polls.
Justice Lifu said that the suit filed by the Labour Party and its candidates in the FCT elections, was statute barred having not been filed 14 days after the cause of action arose.
The News Agency of Nigeria, (NAN) reports that the party and its candidates for the FCT counsel poll had filed the suit challenging INEC’s decision to exclude LP candidates from the elections.
The party had argued that its candidates were duly nominated but were unlawfully excluded when INEC published the final list of contestants in September 2025.
The party also complained that its logo was omitted from the list of political parties authorised to participate in the elections.
The plaintiffs said they wrote to the INEC Chairman on Sept. 8, 2025, and followed up with a letter on Oct. 2, 2025, protesting the exclusion, but received no response.
They told the court that without judicial intervention, they would be unfairly barred from fielding candidates in the polls.
Justice Lifu, however, dismissed the suit, upholding INEC’s position on the exclusion of the party’s candidates.
NAN
