By Romeo Ese Michael, Esq.
INTRODUCTION:
On 26th of June 2026, the Federal High Court, Lokoja Judicial Division, set aside its own final judgment of 10th December 2025, a judgment that had already been given effect, with the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) registered and issued a Certificate of Registration. The application was brought by one Barrister Emmanuel Uzowuru, self-described as “Protem National Legal Adviser” of the “Peace Movement Party (PMP)”, purporting to act for himself and on behalf of PMP. With respect, the decision cannot stand. It is founded on a furore of legal errors: a collapse of two separate doctrines on who may challenge a judgment; a failure to interrogate PMP’s doubtful capacity to institute the action; a misconception of joinder jurisprudence; and the invocation of a remedy that is not available to a stranger to the judgment. The errors are set out below, alongside what ought to have been the court’s disposition.
THE FACTS IN BRIEF
At the heart of the matter was NDC’s challenge to INEC’s refusal to register it as a political party. NDC maintained that it had met all constitutional and statutory conditions. INEC’s objection rested, in part, on the party’s “two-finger victory” logo. On 10th of December 2025, the Court entered judgment for NDC. Registration followed. Months later, PMP through Uzowuru filed a Motion on Notice seeking an extension of time to apply to set aside that judgment, and an order setting it aside, on the footing that PMP had submitted the same logo to INEC before NDC did, that INEC knew this, and that the fact was not disclosed to the Court at trial. INEC’s own affidavit of facts appeared to confirm that both PMP and NDC had submitted the same logo, and that PMP’s submission preceded NDC’s. The trial Court treated this as establishing that PMP was a “necessary party” who ought to have been heard, found a breach of the audi alteram partem rule, and set the December 2025 judgment aside in its entirety, with the suit reverting to its pre-judgment stage.
THE CENTRAL ERROR: A FATAL MERGER OF TWO UNRELATED DOCTRINES
The Ruling’s reasoning leans heavily on a line of authority Green v. Green, Adigun v. Attorney-General of Oyo State, Alao v. A.C.B. Ltd for the proposition that a judgment entered in breach of the right to fair hearing is a nullity, liable to be set aside ex debito justitiae by the very Court that delivered it. That proposition is sound. But it answers a different question from the one the case actually presented.
Those authorities, and the doctrine they embody, concern persons who were already parties to the proceedings, or who were entitled, as of right, to be joined and heard, and were wrongly kept out complaining that the process which bound them denied them a hearing. They do not concern a complete stranger to the suit who, after final judgment has been entered, given effect, and acted upon, comes forward to say that he should have been there.
That second situation is governed by a different and more restrictive rule, captured precisely in the authority of Chief Emmanuel Ekong v. The Estate of Ramoni Amoo & Ors (2019) LPELR-49362. There, the Court of Appeal drew exactly the distinction the Ruling under review fails to draw: a person who was not a party to the proceedings that produced the judgment “lacks the locus standi to apply to the Court to set aside the judgment,” and the Court expressly contrasted this with the position of “a judgment given in the absence of one of the parties before the Court, in order to give the other party opportunity of being heard,” noting that “different considerations” apply there, citing Williams v. Hope Rising (1982) 1–2 SC 145. The remedy available to the stranger as Ekong held, and as the Court of Appeal authorities it cites (Otobaimere v. Akporehe; In Re: Madaki; Owena Bank (Nig.) Plc v. Nigeria Stock Exchange Ltd, In Re: Securities and Exchange Commission) confirm is to seek leave to appeal as a “person interested,” under what is now Section 243 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), not to move the trial court that delivered the judgment to set the judgment aside.
PMP was, on the Ruling’s own express finding, “not a party to the substantive proceedings.” That should have been the end of any inquiry into whether PMP could invoke the fair-hearing exception to functus officio before the trial Court. Instead, the Ruling treats PMP’s factual interest in the logo as though it converted PMP into something closer to a wrongly-excluded party, the Williams v. Hope Rising scenario when on its own facts this was squarely the Ekong scenario. That is the confusion at the root of the Ruling, and once it is exposed, much of the rest of the reasoning falls away with it.
JOINDER AUTHORITIES DO NOT GIVE STANDING AFTER JUDGMENT
The Ruling relies on Peenok Investments v. Hotel Presidential (1982) 12 SC 1 and Uku v. Okumagba (1974) 3 SC 35 to call PMP a “necessary party”. Those cases are clear: a necessary party is one who must be joined while the suit is still on, because the case cannot be decided completely without him. They are about joinder before judgment, not after. They do not, and were never meant to, allow a stranger to walk into a concluded case and set the judgment aside. At most, the cases mean NDC’s suit might have been better with PMP joined before trial. They say nothing about who can complain after judgment, or how. That question is answered by Ekong v. Estate of Ramoni Amoo and Ekong’s case says a stranger cannot apply to set aside the judgment. By treating “PMP should have been joined” as the same as “PMP can now set aside the judgment”, the Ruling skips a necessary legal step, and gets the answer wrong.
SUPREME COURT AUTHORITY FORECLOSES THIS COURSE OF ACTION
The point is not merely a matter of academic principle; it has already been decided, on strikingly similar facts, by the Supreme Court itself. In Associated Discount House Ltd. v. The Hon. Minister of Federal Capital Territory (2013) 8 NWLR (Pt. 1357) 493, the trial court had granted an order of mandamus compelling the 1st respondent to grant consent to a deed of mortgage. The 2nd respondent, the owner of the mortgaged property, who had not been a party to the mandamus application later applied to be joined as a party and to have the order set aside. The trial court overruled a preliminary objection grounded on functus officio, set aside its own order of mandamus, and joined the 2nd respondent as a necessary party to the application. That is, point for point, the same sequence the Ruling under review followed with PMP: a stranger with a real interest, retrospectively elevated to “necessary party” status, used as the springboard for unmaking a concluded judgment.
The Supreme Court would have none of it. On the question of standing, it held, in terms that admit no qualification:
“A person who was not a party to a suit in which an order of court was made against a party to the suit, has no locus to apply for the setting aside of the order of court.” (Pp. 519, paras. C–G)”
On the scope of the functus officio exceptions, the Court went further, confirming that even the recognised grounds for revisiting a judgment such as default of appearance or concealment of material facts are not available to just anyone:
“…a court, which has delivered its judgment can hear and determine an application to set aside its judgment for default of appearance or on account of concealment of material facts. Such application to set the judgment must be brought timeously by a party to the proceedings.” (Pp. 515–516, paras. H–C; 517, para. H; 520, para. B; 521, para. D–E)”
This is fatal to the Ruling on two fronts. First, it confirms that elevating a stranger to “necessary party” status after judgment, in order to justify hearing his application, is precisely the error the Supreme Court reversed, the trial court in Associated Discount House was held to have been wrong to set aside its own order on that basis, as was the Court of Appeal for affirming the outcome on a different but equally not allowed ground. Second, even PMP’s own description of its complaint that material facts about its prior claim to the logo were concealed from the trial Court does not assist it, because the Supreme Court’s holding is explicit that an application to set aside on the ground of concealment of material facts must be brought by a party to the proceedings. PMP was not, and on this authority alone, its application ought never to have been entertained, let alone granted.
THE UNEXAMINED THRESHOLD: DID PMP HAVE LEGAL PERSONALITY TO SUE?
A threshold question the Ruling does not address is whether PMP existed in law at all when it filed the application. That question precedes locus standi and ought to have been decided first.
The statutory requirement: Section 77(1) of the Electoral Act, 2022 provides that “a political party registered under this Act” is a body corporate with perpetual succession, and can sue and be sued in its own name. The right to sue therefore depends on registration.2. What the Ruling itself shows
Nothing in the Ruling proves PMP was registered as at the date of the application. Every description points the other way: Uzowuru is styled “Protem National Legal Adviser” a title used by provisional, unregistered associations. The Ruling records that PMP “had commenced the process of registration” and submitted its logo “as part of its registration documents.”
That is the language of an applicant, not of a registered party.
The legal consequence: If PMP was not registered when it applied, it had no juristic personality separate from its members. An unincorporated association cannot sue, be sued, or instruct counsel in the name “Peace Movement Party, PMP.” A court has no jurisdiction to determine the rights of an entity that does not exist in law as a person. This is not a technicality. It goes to jurisdiction and should have been resolved as a threshold issue, with the burden on the Applicant to prove it. The Ruling’s silence on this point is, with respect, a fundamental omission.
A REMEDY NOT AVAILABLE TO A STRANGER, AND THE RIGHT REMEDY OVERLOOKED
Even assuming PMP had standing to be heard, the Court still chose the wrong remedy. The correct remedy for a stranger is to appeal with leave. Ekong, and the authorities it follows, are clear, a non-party with a genuine interest must seek leave of the appellate court to appeal as a “person interested” under Section 243 of the Constitution. That route protects strangers with real grievances, while preserving the finality of the trial court’s judgment and the rights of the actual parties. The Court of Appeal applied the same principle on near-identical facts in Fashoyin vs. Abayomi (2018) ALL FLWR (Pt. 920)159. There, a non-party whose property was wrongly subjected to execution sought to set aside the order. The Court of Appeal held:
“…after a judgment on merit has been delivered, the court thereafter becomes functus officio except for the slip rule. It therefore means that the appellant who was not a party in the trial court does not have the locus standi to bring an application to set aside the judgment. The only option left for the appellant is to seek leave to appeal against the judgment of the lower court as an interested party.”
That decision rested on a settled line of authority, Associated Discount House Ltd. v. Minister of F.C.T., Abuja; ICAN v. Inegbu; Okonkwo v. U.B.A.; and Contracted Resources Nigeria Ltd. v. U.B.A. The rule is not isolated. It runs from the Supreme Court through the Court of Appeal, and applies whether the stranger’s grievance concerns mortgaged property, execution against land, or, as here, a disputed party logo.
THE CORRECT REMEDY AGAINST INEC: JUDICIAL REVIEW OR FRESH ACTION:
If PMP’s complaint is that material facts on its registration were suppressed before INEC, the proper route is Section 76 of the Electoral Act, 2026, which makes INEC’s decision on registration “subject to judicial review” within 14 days of the decision. Alternatively, PMP could institute a fresh action against INEC and/or NDC to assert its claim to the logo. Neither route permits a stranger to reopen a concluded suit between other parties.
Why a motion by affidavit is not the answer: Allegations of fraud or suppression of facts are serious. The law requires them to be pleaded and tested in a fresh action with oral evidence and cross-examination, not resolved on affidavit in a motion by a stranger to the suit. Fraud cannot be proved by a truncated process, least of all by someone who was never a party to the judgment being impugned.
It may be argued that procedural rules should give way because INEC’s affidavit supports PMP’s claim of priority. With respect, that misses the point. Nigerian courts have never treated “substantial justice” as a licence to ignore jurisdiction, capacity, or locus standi. PMP, if it is a juristic entity, has lawful gateways to ventilate its claim on the merits. What the law does not permit is for a stranger to enter a concluded suit between other parties and have the trial court set the judgment aside.
THE MISAPPLICATION OF FUNCTUS OFFICIO: A DOCTRINE TURNED AGAINST ITSELF
The Ruling correctly states that a court becomes functus officio after delivering final judgment, and that the doctrine admits only narrow exceptions: nullity, fraud, or denial of fair hearing. But the force of the doctrine lies in that narrowness. Finality cannot stand if the exceptions are triggered as easily as “a non-party who later claims an interest in the dispute.” The Ruling’s reasoning is pedestrian. It holds that PMP can complain of a fair-hearing breach because it is a “necessary party.” Yet it never tests that status against any independent standard of standing or capacity. The “necessary party” label is simply equated with the very interest PMP asserts. An exception designed to be narrow is therefore used to defeat the rule itself. As shown above, Associated Discount House Ltd. v. Minister of F.C.T., Abuja confirms that even these narrow exceptions belong only to parties. A stranger cannot invoke them by asserting an interest the original suit happened to touch.
THE WIDER CONSEQUENCE FOR ELECTORAL LITIGATION
The implications go beyond this case. Part V of the Electoral Act, is built on strict timelines: 90 days for INEC to decide a registration application, 14 days to challenge a refusal under Section 76, and a regulated register of symbols under Section 79 to avoid exactly the clash here. The scheme assumes finality. If this Ruling stands, the scheme collapses. Any rival or disappointed applicant registered or not could wait months or years after a registration judgment has been concluded, implemented, and relied upon, and then ask the trial court to set it aside by motion. That would subject every concluded registration judgment to indefinite collateral attack. It is incompatible with the deliberate finality the Electoral Act was designed to secure.
WHAT THE COURT OUGHT TO HAVE DONE
With respect, the correct disposition was to strike out the Motion on Notice for want of locus standi, and, depending on the evidence before it, for want of capacity, without foreclosing PMP’s substantive grievance. PMP, assuming it could first establish that it was a juristic entity capable of suing remained free to:
- seek the leave of the Court of Appeal to appeal the 10th of December 2025 judgment as a “person interested,” under Section 243 of the Constitution, per Ekong v. Estate of Ramoni Amoo, Associated Discount House Ltd v. Minister of FCT, and Fashoyin v. Abayomi; or
- institute a fresh substantive action against INEC and/or NDC, properly pleading and proving its claim to priority in the disputed logo; or
- pursue whatever recourse remained open to it within INEC’s own administrative process, or by way of judicial review under Section 76 of the Electoral Act, 2026.
Any of these routes would have allowed PMP’s grievance to be tested on its merits, by a forum properly seised of it, without unsettling a judgment between other parties that had already been acted upon.
CONCLUSION
The Ruling is driven by a legitimate concern: INEC’s affidavit appeared to support PMP’s claim of prior right to the logo, and fairness seemed to demand that PMP be heard. That concern is understandable. But sympathy for an unheard stranger is not, in law, a substitute for the rules that govern who may sue, in what capacity, by what process, and for what relief. On the authorities the Ruling itself cited read properly alongside Ekong v. Estate of Ramoni Amoo, Barrister Uzowuru and the Peace Movement Party had no standing to bring the application they brought, in the forum they chose, by the process they adopted. Associated Discount House Ltd. v. Minister of FCT puts that conclusion beyond serious argument. With respect, the Ruling ought not to stand. The matter warrants appellate scrutiny.
Romeo Ese Michael, Esq. is an Insolvency Practitioner and Legal Practitioner, and Head of Chambers/Partner at D.A. Awosika SAN & Partners LLP, Ikeja, Lagos. He can be reached at [email protected].
The post When A Stranger Unmakes A Judgment: A Critical Appraisal Of The Ruling In Takori Mohammed Sani & 3 Ors V. INEC (Re: The Application Of Peace Movement Party) In Suit No. FHC/LKJ/CS/49/2025 appeared first on TheNigeriaLawyer.
