Court Bars INEC From Using MC Oluomo To Distribute Election Materials

Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of the Federal High Court in Lagos has acceded to the request of the Labour Party (LP) to restrain the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from employing the services of Musliu Akinsanya, also known as MC Oluomo, the Chairman of the Lagos Parks and Garages, to distribute election materials in Lagos.

The LP had sought a court order to bar MC Oluomo, a prominent figure in the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), from participating in the distribution of electoral materials, citing concerns over his alleged association with political violence and thuggery.

The court granted “an order of interlocutory injunction filed by the Labour Party and five others restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (defendant/respondent), whether by itself or by its officers, affiliates, servants, privies or agents or any person acting or purporting to act for and on behalf howsoever from taking any steps or further steps whatsoever in furtherance of the engagement or appointment or consummating the appointment of Musiliu Akinsanya, popularly known as MC Oluomo-led Lagos State Parks Management Committee or any of its commercial bus drivers to distribute 2023 election materials and personnel in Lagos State pending the hearing and determination the substantive suit.”

INEC in Lagos State had reacted to a backlash following a letter written by MC Oluomo asking the electoral umpire to contract the distribution of materials to him, saying it (INEC) was engaging parks managers in the state and not MC Oluomo.

The Residential Electoral Commissioner for Lagos State, Olusegun Agbaje, had said, “On the issue of MC Oluomo, the commission is not concerned with Oluomo. We are concerned with the issue of motor park administration in Lagos.

“For the past two years, the Lagos State government has banned the operations of the NURTW and RTEAN in the state. They had problems and the state government banned them.

“So we are left with Lagos State Park and Garages and the National Association of Road Transport Owners,” adding that NARTO, which, according to him, the commission was already working with, “is not able to meet up with the 40 per cent needs of the commission for this election,” hence the commission’s consideration of engaging the MC Oluomo-led Lagos State Parks and Garages.

“We are not dealing with MC Oluomo,” Agbaje had said, adding that “we are dealing with park managers. They are individual persons that have vehicles that we are going to use for the elections.

“The law has already banned the NURTW from operating in the state so we cannot violate the law by patronising them.

“It will be we working against the law if we have to be working with the banned associations. So it cannot work.”