In a remarkable judicial contradiction, two Federal High Courts delivered diametrically opposed judgments on the legal status of the Action People’s Party (APP) on the same day, Monday, June 15, 2026, with the Federal High Court sitting in Owerri, Imo State, dismissing a suit challenging the party’s registration and ruling that APP was never lawfully deregistered by INEC, while the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja simultaneously ordered INEC to deregister APP along with four other political parties for failing to meet constitutional performance benchmarks.
The conflicting rulings have created an extraordinary legal situation in which the same political party has been judicially declared both validly registered and ordered deregistered by courts of coordinate jurisdiction on the very same date, raising immediate questions about which judgment prevails, how INEC should respond, and whether the contradiction will require appellate intervention to resolve.
Justice I.N. Oweibo of the Federal High Court, Owerri, delivered a comprehensive judgment dismissing a suit filed by one Mazi Ngororo Franklin Chinazo, who had asked the court to compel INEC to remove APP from its register of political parties on the grounds that the party was allegedly deregistered during INEC’s February 6, 2020, exercise that affected 74 political parties.
The plaintiff had argued that APP’s participation in electoral activities, including the 2024 Rivers State Local Government Elections and local council polls in Jigawa State, was unlawful because the party had purportedly ceased to exist following the 2020 deregistration. He relied on media reports and a Supreme Court judgment affirming INEC’s general powers to deregister non-performing parties.
However, the court found that the plaintiff fundamentally failed to establish that APP was ever lawfully deregistered. The critical finding was that APP had, on the very day the deregistration exercise was announced, approached the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, and obtained an order restraining INEC from taking any action affecting its status pending the determination of its judicial review proceedings.
“I find on the evidence that the 3rd Defendant instituted an action against the 1st Defendant and obtained an order stopping the 1st Defendant from taking any action in respect of deregistering the 3rd Defendant,” Justice Oweibo held.
The court noted that the enrolled order directed that the leave granted for judicial review should operate as a stay of all actions connected with the subject matter of the suit. The plaintiff failed to controvert the authenticity of the order or prove that it was invalid.
Six-Year Stay of Proceedings Upheld
The court rejected the plaintiff’s argument that an interim order could not remain effective for nearly six years. Justice Oweibo explained that the order in question was not an ordinary interim injunction but a stay granted in judicial review proceedings, which operates under different rules.
Citing Order 44, Rule 3(6) of the FCT High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, the judge held that such a stay remains in force until the determination of the substantive application or until the court orders otherwise. Since neither condition had been met, the stay remained effective, meaning INEC had never been legally free to deregister APP despite the 2020 exercise.
Supreme Court Judgment Did Not Apply to APP
The court also agreed with both INEC and APP that the Supreme Court decision relied upon by the plaintiff did not specifically address APP’s status, as the party was not a litigant in the proceedings that culminated in the apex court’s judgment. The Supreme Court ruling affirmed INEC’s general power to deregister non-performing parties but did not determine the status of any specific party that had obtained a subsisting court order restraining INEC from acting against it.
INEC maintained throughout the proceedings that APP remained a registered political party and denied allegations of fraud or collusion in retaining the party on its register. The electoral body argued that the media reports cited by the plaintiff did not constitute official evidence of deregistration and insisted that its actions had always been guided by subsisting court orders and judicial pronouncements.
APP, in its defence, tendered court judgments supporting its position and denied allegations that its continued participation in elections was fraudulent, maintaining that all its electoral activities were conducted within the framework of the law.
The court resolved all five issues submitted for adjudication against the plaintiff and dismissed the suit in its entirety. Justice Oweibo was particularly critical of the action, describing it as one that ought not to have been instituted in the first place.
“The plaintiff merely wasted the time of the court and the defendants,” the judge ruled.
He found that the plaintiff was aware from the extensive searches he claimed to have conducted that APP had not been deregistered and that previous court decisions had already affirmed the party’s status.
The court awarded punitive costs, ordering the plaintiff to pay N10 million in damages to INEC and another N10 million to APP, a total of N20 million, an unusually heavy sanction that reflects the court’s view that the suit was frivolous and brought in bad faith.
In stark contrast, Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on the same Monday, ordered INEC to deregister five political parties including APP, along with the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Action Alliance (AA), Accord Party, and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/2637/2026 brought by the Incorporated Trustees of the National Forum of Former Legislators.
Justice Lifu held that the parties failed to meet the performance benchmarks prescribed by Section 225A of the 1999 Constitution, specifically that they did not secure at least 25 per cent of votes in any state during the 2023 presidential election and failed to win at least one elective seat at any level.
The Abuja court barred INEC from allowing the five parties to participate in the 2027 elections, restrained the parties from conducting primaries, holding rallies, or campaigning, and prohibited INEC from conducting official business with or recognising any of the five platforms.
The two judgments are irreconcilable as they stand. The Owerri court found, based on evidence including a subsisting FCT High Court restraining order and INEC’s own confirmation, that APP was never lawfully deregistered and remains a validly registered political party. The Abuja court found that APP failed to meet constitutional performance thresholds and must be deregistered.
The Owerri judgment examined the specific history of APP’s engagement with the courts since the 2020 deregistration exercise and concluded that the party had been protected by a valid judicial order throughout. The Abuja judgment appears to have assessed the five parties’ electoral performance without reference to the subsisting court orders that may have protected some of them from previous deregistration attempts.
Neither judgment, as a decision of the Federal High Court, has precedential authority over the other, since both courts are of coordinate jurisdiction. The contradiction can only be resolved by the Court of Appeal, which will need to determine which set of facts and which legal reasoning prevails.
For INEC, the situation presents an immediate practical dilemma: one court has confirmed APP’s registered status and fined a plaintiff N20 million for suggesting otherwise, while another court has ordered INEC to deregister the same party and bar it from all electoral activity. Compliance with one judgment necessarily means defiance of the other.
The conflicting judgments add to the growing pattern of contradictory court orders in politically sensitive cases that has characterised the pre-2027 election period, reinforcing concerns about forum shopping, the allocation of cases to particular judges, and the need for a mechanism to prevent coordinate courts from delivering irreconcilable decisions on the same legal question.
Both judgments are expected to be appealed. The Court of Appeal will ultimately need to reconcile the contradiction and determine APP’s legal standing with finality. In the meantime, the party exists in a state of judicial limbo: simultaneously confirmed and condemned by courts of equal authority on the same day.
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