INEC Advises Parties against Prolonged Litigation

Onyebuchi Ezigbo

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has asked politicians and political parties to try and embrace alternative dispute resolution mechanism and avoid frivolous litigations.

The commission also frowned at the increasing disrespect for superior court judgments by politicians, adding that a situation where politicians would return cases already judged by the Appeal and Supreme Courts to the lower courts has continued to affect the commissions determination to ensure a true democratic principles in the country.

INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmud Yakubu, who spoke while declaring open a two-day capacity building workshop organised by the commission for leaders of political parties yesterday in Abuja regretted that such protracted litigations have stalled the conduct of scheduled elections there making nonsense of INEC’s election time table.

“We must try very hard to reduce the level of litigations among the politicians and political parties, even those cases that have been decided by superior courts are sometimes subjected to further litigations by political parties. Political party leaders must respect judgment of superior courts,” he said.

Yakubu also expressed concern over the disregard for superior court judgments by politicians and political parties, noting that this has denied some people their desire representation at the different levels of government

“It is these unnecessary litigations that have led to the non conduct of the Anambra Central election till date because parties went back to challenge the judgment of superior courts at the lower courts.

“It is also necessary that parties must embrace the alternative dispute resolution process rather than approaching the courts at all times,” Yakubu tasked the political party leaders.

Eariier in her opening remarks, the Commissioner in charge of Political Party Monitoring Committee of INEC, Professor Antonia Okoosi-Simbine, noted that the aim of the two-day workshop was to enhance the capacity of political parties to play their roles in providing the vehicle for presenting competent and credible candidates for elective offices.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced yesterday that over $175 million accruing from ticket sales by foreign airlines is still trapped in Nigeria due to inadequate foreign exchange.

This is down from $575 million by May last year because the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) started offloading the trapped funds to the airlines at the beginning of this year when revenues from oil sales received a boost due to increase in crude oil prices.

However, IATA said nonremittance of such funds was having negative impact on the operations of the affected carriers, as the blocked funds constitute