Court Victory: Alia Moves To Reconcile With Aggrieved Co-Contestants

The Governorship Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in Benue State for the 2023 General Elections, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, has extended hands of friendship to all his co-contested for the party’s ticket but, who aggrieved to grant his appeal and join hands with him in the spirit of brotherliness and progress of the state.
Alia, who made the appeal Monday, October 31, 2022 while reacting to the court victory of the APC over Hon. Herman Hembe of the Labour Party (LP), said that even though he is excited over the Court judgement, he is still persuaded that there is no victor, nor vanquish.

In his words; “It is a victory for all of us in APC including my aggrieved bothers. Even though it will be unfair for me to criticise anyone who is aggrieved and seeking redress, it is however my honest wish that there should be no court cases at all.

“Let me also take the opportunity to invite all the other brothers who feel aggrieved that, the end point should not be the court. We are brothers, and this is our State.
At the end of the day, we will all still need to come back to salvage our State. I am inviting them to come back, let us stay on a round table for reconciliation, to talk like brothers,” he said.

Hembe of the Labour Party had taken APC and INEC to Court seeking amongst other prayers that the court should order Electoral Commission to disregard the APC primaries that produced Rev. Fr. Alia as candidate.

He argued that the results of the APC primaries in Benue State cannot be genuine when his name appeared on the result sheets and votes allocated to him when he had resigned membership of the party before the primaries.
But, delivery judgement on the matter, Justice Abdul Dogo of the Federal High Court, Makurdi, declined jurisdiction and dismissed the case on the ground that the suit did not meet the requirements of the provision of Section 285(14) of the 1999 Constitution (As Amended) to qualify as a pre-election matter.