A High Court sitting in Nasarawa State has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognise Barrister Julius Abure and Alhaji Umar Farouk Ibrahim as the authentic leadership of the Labour Party (LP) and accept their faction’s candidates for future elections.
Contrary to an earlier Supreme Court judgement directing Abure to stop parading himself and his executives as LP leaders, the new court directed INEC to accept and announce the list of candidates that the faction under him earlier submitted for the coming bye-elections to fill vacant legislative seats nationwide.
Another faction, loyal to Governor Alex Otti and 2023 LP Presidential Candidate Peter Obi earlier won a Supreme Court judgement enabling the fielding of Senator Nenadi Usman as Interim National Chairman, pending LP’s next National Convention.
The court also ordered INEC to grant access code to the Labour Party’s National Working Committee to upload the names and particulars of their nominated candidates for the upcoming bye-elections and FCT Area Council elections.
The court’s decision was delivered on July 23, 2025, by Hon. Justice Mustapha A. Ramat came after the Labour Party approached the court seeking reliefs to enable them participate in the elections August 16, 2025 bye-election across the country and the FCT council poll.
LP in a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday by the party’s Publicity Secretary l, Abayomi Arabambi accused INEC of refusing to publish names of the nominated candidates by the party.
However, the court order mandated INEC to accord Julius Abure led National Executive Committee (NEC) as the recognized leadership of the party responsible to nominate candidates for elections.
