November 15, (THEWILL) – Impunity of the highest order. That is what emerged at the Federal High Court on Friday, regarding the role of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on the candidature of the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ogun State, Oladipupo Adebutu. Apart from the obvious lega
l and constitutional precedents that prevent the electoral umpire from determining for the political parties their candidates for elections, there was a deliberate, if not audacious, attempt by officials to foist their decision on the presiding judge, Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
INEC had opposed the suit, filed by the plaintiffs, through their counsel, Ahmed Raji, SAN, asking the court to determine six questions and grant 11 reliefs. Among other reliefs, they sought an order setting aside the commission’s decision to omit, remove or refuse to publish Adebutu’s name in the final list of candidates.
They argued that the action violated their right to a fair hearing and breached the provisions of Sections 29 and 32 of the Electoral Act, 2026. INEC maintained that Adebutu’s name was not contained in the membership register submitted by the PDP to the commission.
In a counter-affidavit deposed to by Mustapha Mohammed, a Chief Programme Analyst in INEC’s Information and Communication Technology Department, the commission told the court that its records did not contain Adebutu’s name in the register submitted by the party. Mohammed stated that the only name found in the register was that of the PDP deputy governorship candidate in Ogun State, Kolapo Lateefat Oyeyemi.
But the PDP National Organising Secretary, Umar Bature, disputed INEC’s claims and told the court that Adebutu’s name was included in the flash drive containing the party’s list of candidates submitted to INEC.
Led in evidence by Raji, Bature said the PDP complied with the requirements of the Electoral Act and Paragraph 4(3) of Part I of the Regulations and Guidelines for Political Parties, 2026, issued by INEC. He explained that the party submitted a soft copy of its candidates’ list through a flash drive, in accordance with the stipulated guidelines. Wait for this! Bature also drew the court’s attention to what he described as a discrepancy in the flash drives presented by the parties. According to him, the flash drive submitted by the PDP to INEC was silver in colour, contrary to the colour of the device brought to court by the commission.
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He maintained that the device originally submitted by the party contained the names of all its candidates, including Adebutu. Nevertheless, Mohammed, who testified for INEC, maintained that Adebutu’s name was not included in the list of candidates submitted by the PDP. The INEC official told the court that the party submitted both hard and soft copies of its candidates’ list to the commission but insisted that Adebutu’s name was absent from the documents received. The conflicting testimonies placed the contents of the submitted electronic records and the identity of the flash drives at the centre of the dispute.
At this point, Justice Peter Lifu had to intervene. He told INEC, as the Commission had been severally told by judges, that it had no constitutional authority to unilaterally remove the name of a candidate validly nominated by a political party.
The judge described the commission’s action as unconstitutional, unlawful and of no effect, maintaining that INEC could not assume judicial powers by independently determining the validity of a political party’s nomination. According to him, the authority to invalidate a candidate’s nomination rests with a court of competent jurisdiction, including the Federal High Court or the relevant State High Court, and not the electoral commission. Following this is a question.
If INEC was not an interested party in the matter, why did it fail to inform the party of the missing name of its governorship candidate while that of the deputy governor was on the list? Did the Commission have to wait for a court of law to remind it of such an elementary, statutory duty if it intended to do so fairly with the political party? What does it mean to be an umpire in a contest involving many competitors?
This judgment should make INEC wiser next time.
