The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has dismissed a suit seeking to nullify the emergence of former Cross River State Governor Donald Duke as the presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party for the 2027 general election, holding that the action was filed outside the constitutionally prescribed time for pre-election cases and that the plaintiff also failed to establish the substantive allegations raised against the primary.
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Justice Mohammed Umar, who delivered the judgment on Wednesday, upheld preliminary objections filed by Duke and the PRP and held that the suit brought by an aggrieved presidential aspirant, Yakubu Muhammed Kingsley, was statute-barred.
The suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1234/2026, had the PRP, Duke and the Independent National Electoral Commission as defendants.
Kingsley had asked the court to invalidate Duke’s emergence from the PRP presidential primary conducted on May 25, 2026. He challenged, among other things, Duke’s eligibility to participate in the primary and alleged irregularities in voting figures recorded in some states.
But before going into those complaints, Justice Umar considered whether the action had been brought within the time allowed by the Constitution.
The court held that the dispute was a pre-election matter governed by Section 285(9) of the 1999 Constitution, which requires such an action to be commenced within 14 days from the date of the event, decision or action complained of.
Kingsley filed the case on June 10, 2026. The court held that the action came outside the constitutionally permitted period when calculated from the May 25 primary exercise and consequently upheld the defendants’ objection that the suit was statute-barred.
Kingsley had argued that the 14-day period should instead begin to run from June 6, when the PRP’s internal appeal committee communicated its decision rejecting his complaint.
Justice Umar rejected that argument, holding that the internal appeal process did not shift the constitutionally prescribed period for commencing the pre-election action.
That finding was enough to defeat the case on competence. The court, however, went further and considered the substantive complaints raised by Kingsley, resolving them against him as well.
One of the central complaints concerned Duke’s membership of the PRP.
Kingsley had contended that Duke was not a registered member of the party as of May 4, when the PRP’s membership register was submitted to INEC, and therefore questioned whether he could validly emerge as the party’s presidential candidate at the May 25 primary.
Justice Umar held, however, that membership of a political party is an internal party affair and, in the circumstances of the case, was outside the court’s jurisdiction.
The ruling therefore distinguished the question of who a political party recognises as its member from statutory complaints that may independently confer jurisdiction on a court.
The court also found that Kingsley did not place before it the relevant PRP guidelines which he alleged had been violated during the screening and nomination process.
Without those guidelines in evidence, the court held that the alleged breach of the party’s screening rules had not been established.
Kingsley had also raised an allegation of over-voting during the presidential primary.
According to the case presented to the court, he alleged that in Bauchi State, the PRP had 593 registered members but recorded 760 votes; that Gombe had 348 registered members against 1,431 votes cast; and that Kwara had 55 registered members while 82 votes were allegedly recorded. He asked the court to determine whether those figures should lead to the nullification of the primary.
The court held that the allegation was not proved.
Justice Umar found that Kingsley failed to produce the materials necessary to establish the alleged discrepancies, including the party’s membership register, accreditation records and final primary-election results.
In the absence of those documents, the court ruled that there was insufficient evidence upon which it could sustain the allegation of over-voting.
The effect of the judgment is that Kingsley’s attempt at the Federal High Court level to invalidate Duke’s emergence has failed, with all the issues considered by the court resolved in favour of the PRP, Duke and INEC. The judgment does not prevent any party who is dissatisfied from exercising whatever right of appeal may be available under the law.
Duke emerged as the PRP presidential candidate following the party’s May 25 primary, with the result announced around the conclusion of the exercise. Kingsley, who also sought the party’s ticket, later approached the court challenging the process.
The judgment is particularly significant for its treatment of the 14-day constitutional limitation governing pre-election disputes.
By rejecting Kingsley’s argument that the clock should begin only after completion of the party’s internal appeal process, the court held that a political aspirant cannot rely on an internal party review to extend the constitutional period for approaching the court over the underlying event complained of.
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