Court Strikes Out Bid to Recognize Turaki-Led PDP Faction

A Federal High Court in Abuja has struck out a significant suit that sought to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to officially recognise and publish the names of the Kabiru Turaki-led interim National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The judgment, delivered by Justice Salim Ibrahim, determined that the plaintiffs, spearheaded by Senator Adolphus Wabara, who is the Chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees, lacked the requisite legal standing, also known as locus standi, to initiate the legal action.

Justice Ibrahim consequently dismissed the suit due to a want of jurisdiction, asserting that the court was not the appropriate forum for the matter. The court's decision involved upholding the preliminary objection filed by INEC itself. Furthermore, it sustained similar objections presented by various parties who had sought to be joined in the litigation, reinforcing the court's position on the plaintiffs' inability to proceed.

The core of the court's reasoning was that the plaintiffs failed to adequately establish that INEC had ever officially recognised the purported interim NWC. Crucially, they also did not demonstrate that they possessed the legitimate authority to institute a suit on behalf of the Peoples Democratic Party as a whole. The members of the Wabara-led Board of Trustees had initially approached the court with the aim of forcing INEC to update its official records and acknowledge the factional interim NWC, which was headed by Kabiru Turaki, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). Their petition also included a request for a judicial order instructing the electoral commission to publicly list the names of these interim executives on its official website.

The plaintiffs had argued that the names of the Turaki-led executive members were formally transmitted to INEC via letters dated May 4. They further contended that, based on the established constitutional provisions and the internal constitution of the PDP, the electoral body had a clear obligation to recognise and act upon correspondence received from this interim leadership. This stance, however, faced strong opposition.

A distinct faction within the Peoples Democratic Party, which is known to be aligned with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, actively challenged the court’s jurisdiction in the matter and sought to intervene by being joined in the case. This particular group, under the leadership of its National Chairman, Abdulrahman Mohammed, emphatically maintained that it represented the authentic and legitimate leadership of the PDP. They vigorously argued that the initial plaintiffs, led by Wabara, completely lacked the necessary locus standi to commence the legal proceedings.

Prior to rendering the substantive judgment, Justice Ibrahim had already granted the applications for joinder, accepting the argument that the interests of the intervening applicants would be directly impacted by the final outcome of the suit. Following this, the court proceeded to uphold all the preliminary objections that had been raised and subsequently struck out the entire case, critically describing it as an explicit 'abuse of court process'. Justice Ibrahim's ruling elaborated that the plaintiffs were, in effect, attempting to relitigate issues that had already undergone determination by various other courts, thus constituting a misuse of the judicial system. In a final significant step, the court also struck out the name of the PDP from the lawsuit, on the grounds that the plaintiffs had not secured the party’s official authorisation to bring the action in its name.