Actor Olumide Oworu has spoken up about his exclusion from the Surulere Constituency election for the Lagos State House of Assembly, which was won by fellow actor Desmond Elliott on March 18. In a statement, Oworu asserted that he did not participate in the election merely for publicity. He also explained that his name was not on the ballot paper due to INEC’s noncompliance with a court order issued on February 2.
The order directed the commission to open its website to allow the Labour Party to submit its candidates’ names or accept a manual submission. Furthermore, Oworu noted that INEC did not upload the names from the Labour Party’s October 2022 list.
He wrote:
’Regarding the authenticity of my candidacy and my name not appearing on the ballot, that is a situation that came about due to the failure of the INEC to comply with the subsisting judgment of the Federal High Court delivered on the 2nd of February 2023 in Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/2115/2022 wherein INEC was ordered to open her website to allow the labour party to submit the list of her candidates or accept the same manually immediately. INEC failed to upload the names on the list sent by the Labour Party in October 2022. I assure you that this endeavour was not one for clout but was borne out of a genuine desire for change.”
Read the full text of his statement below
