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Court Delivers Final Judgment on Deregistration of ADC

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Court Delivers Final Judgment on Deregistration of ADC

The Court of Appeal has overturned the judgment of the Federal High Court that ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deregister five political parties, including the African Democratic Congress (ADC), declaring the earlier decision null and void.

The appellate court’s decision also affects the Accord Party, Action Alliance (AA), Action Peoples Party (APP), and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), all of which had been listed in the Federal High Court’s deregistration order.

In a unanimous judgment delivered by a three-member panel led by Justice Abba Mohammed, the Court of Appeal held that the Federal High Court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the matter in the first place. The court consequently set aside the entire judgment and nullified the order directing INEC to deregister the affected political parties.

While delivering the judgment, the appellate court described the decision of the lower court as “a nullity” and ruled that the order for the deregistration of the parties could not stand.

The court further criticised the actions of the trial court, stating, “What the learned trial court did amounted to judicial impertinence or what the Supreme Court called judicial insubordination.”

According to the appellate court, the Federal High Court ought not to have proceeded with the delivery of its judgment because the Court of Appeal had already ordered a stay of proceedings in the matter, an order that also covered the delivery of judgment.

The appellate court held that by going ahead to deliver its judgment despite the subsisting stay of proceedings, the lower court acted outside its authority.

The panel also found that the first respondent lacked the legal standing to institute the suit in the first place. It ruled that the respondent had no locus standi to bring the action before the court, making the entire proceedings incompetent from the outset.

On June 15, Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court in Abuja ruled in favour of the plaintiffs and ordered INEC to deregister the five parties. He held that the parties had breached Section 225(a) of the 1999 Constitution, which empowers INEC to deregister political parties that fail to win elective positions or secure at least 25 per cent of votes in previous elections at the federal, state and local government levels.

In his judgment, Justice Lifu ordered that the affected parties were no longer eligible to participate in the 2027 general elections or any other election conducted by INEC. He directed the electoral commission to immediately remove the parties from its register, activate all necessary mechanisms for their deregistration and stop accepting any correspondence from them.

The trial judge also instructed INEC to continue exercising its constitutional powers to deregister any political party that fails to meet the minimum legal threshold, insisting that the measure was necessary to sanitise Nigeria’s political space. He said, “The words used in Section 225(a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) are plain, direct, express and simple and should be given their literal meaning.”Nigeria news updates

He added, “Proliferation of political parties without any purposeful and intentional design to promote democratic ideals should be discouraged. Any tendency to pollute the political environment by exploiting uninformed members of the electorate must be frowned upon by the court.”

However, the affected political parties opposed the suit, arguing that it was frivolous and that related issues were already before the Court of Appeal. INEC also challenged the case, maintaining that the plaintiff lacked the legal standing to institute the action.