In a Judmenmt delivered on Friday, April 4, 2025, the Supreme Court of Nigeria struck out a suit that sought to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognize Barrister Julius Abure as the National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP).
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The decision, penned by Justice John Inyang Okoro, overturned the judgments of both the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal, declaring that the courts lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate the matter, which centered on the internal leadership dispute within the LP.
The appeal, tagged SC/CV/56/2025, was brought by Senator Esther Nenadi Usman, Chairman of the LP’s National Caretaker Committee, and Hon. Darlington Nwokocha, the committee’s Secretary, against the Labour Party and INEC. It challenged a Court of Appeal ruling delivered on January 17, 2025, which, despite striking out the original suit for want of jurisdiction, affirmed Abure’s leadership based on a prior unrelated case.
The legal battle originated from a suit filed by the Labour Party (FHC/ABJ/CS/1271/2024) at the Federal High Court on August 29, 2024, via an originating summons. The LP sought declarations and orders to compel INEC to issue notices for refresher training and access codes for uploading party agents’ details ahead of the Ondo State Governorship Election on November 16, 2024. Crucially, the fifth relief demanded that INEC recognize the LP under Abure’s leadership, revealing an underlying leadership tussle.
The Federal High Court, in its October 8, 2024 judgment, granted all five reliefs, ordering INEC to accord the Abure-led LP all rights of a registered political party. The appellants, Usman and Nwokocha, joined the case and appealed to the Court of Appeal, which struck out the suit for lack of jurisdiction, citing the non-justiciable nature of internal party disputes. However, it controversially upheld Abure’s chairmanship, referencing an unrelated case (CA/ABJ/CV/1172/2024: Labour Party v. Olusola Ebiseni).
Delivering the Supreme Court’s lead judgment, Justice Okoro held that both lower courts erred in assuming jurisdiction over the LP’s leadership dispute. “The main thrust of the action was relief number five, seeking recognition of Barrister Julius Abure as the National Chairman—an internal affair of the Labour Party, which is not justiciable,” he stated. The court found that the suit’s core was a leadership tussle, rendering it outside judicial purview, save for narrow exceptions under Section 84(14) of the Electoral Act, 2022, which did not apply here.
Justice Okoro criticized the lower courts for pronouncing Abure as chairman despite acknowledging their lack of jurisdiction. He clarified that the referenced Ebiseni case dealt with candidacy for the Ondo election, not LP leadership, rendering the Court of Appeal’s reliance on it “perverse.” “A court bereft of jurisdiction over the main relief cannot entertain ancillary claims,” he added, citing legal precedents like Tukur v. Government of Gongola State (1989).
The Supreme Court also addressed the LP’s preliminary objection, which argued that the appeal was incompetent as a pre-election matter filed out of time. Justice Okoro ruled that while reliefs 1–4 (concerning INEC’s training notices) fell under pre-election matters per Section 285(14)(c) of the 1999 Constitution, the appeal’s focus on jurisdiction superseded such procedural constraints, being rooted in Section 241(1)(a).
Consequently, the court allowed the appeal, set aside the lower courts’ recognition of Abure, and struck out the original suit (FHC/ABJ/CS/1271/2024) for want of jurisdiction. The cross-appeal by the LP (SC/CV/56A/2025) was dismissed. Justice Okoro urged political parties to adhere to their constitutions, admonishing officers to “humbly leave” upon tenure expiration to curb incessant litigation.
Download the Judgment in PDF format.
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