*Says Lifu Invented a Constitutional Rule That Does Not Exist to Deregister Parties That Won Elections
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Renowned human rights scholar and former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, CGoF, has delivered his most detailed and damning critique yet of Justice Peter Lifu’s party deregistration judgment, describing it as evincing “a degree of criminal dishonesty that points to something extraordinarily pathological” and identifying three specific passages in the judgment that he said demonstrate fundamental dishonesty in the judge’s legal reasoning.
Odinkalu’s critique, posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, moves beyond his earlier observation that “Peter Lifu never disappoints” and “you can predict what he will decide” to a forensic examination of the judgment itself, matching the judge’s own words against the constitutional provisions and legal principles he purported to apply.
A review of the certified judgment in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/2637/2026 confirms that the passages Odinkalu referenced are present in the judgment, making the critique one that is anchored in the judge’s own language rather than speculation about his reasoning.
Odinkalu’s first point addresses how Justice Lifu dealt with the defendants’ objection that the plaintiff, the Incorporated Trustees of National Forum of Former Legislators, was “a mere busybody or meddlesome interloper” with no legal standing to bring the action.
In the judgment, Justice Lifu stated: “Whether those allegations will ultimately be established is a matter for trial. At this stage, the Court is merely concerned with whether sufficient interest has been disclosed to activate the adjudicatory powers of the Court.”
Odinkalu seized on the use of the word “trial,” stating: “When the defendants tell him that the plaintiff is an ‘interloper’ with no interest in the case, he says the issues will be disposed of at ‘trial’. But this was an originating summons case and there is no trial as such in originating summons proceedings. If there is need for one, then it is no longer an originating summons case.”
The distinction is legally significant. An originating summons is a mode of commencing proceedings that is appropriate where the principal question in dispute is one of law or the construction of a document, and where there is no substantial dispute of fact. Proceedings commenced by originating summons are determined on the basis of affidavit evidence and legal arguments, not through the examination and cross-examination of witnesses that characterise a “trial” in the traditional sense.
When a judge refers to issues being “a matter for trial” in an originating summons proceeding, it creates a fundamental contradiction: if there are disputed facts that require trial, the proceeding should not have been commenced or continued as an originating summons but should have been converted to a writ of summons with full pleadings and oral evidence. Justice Lifu’s use of the word “trial” in this context, Odinkalu argues, reveals either a misunderstanding of the nature of the proceeding before him or a deliberate use of imprecise language to avoid engaging with the substance of the standing objection.
Odinkalu’s second and most substantive point addresses what he describes as the most dishonest passage in the entire judgment: Justice Lifu’s treatment of the evidence that the affected parties had won elections.
The judgment itself records that the evidence before the court showed the following:
The ADC won two seats in the House of Representatives during the 2023 General Elections in Kogi State, specifically the Ijumu/Kabba-Bunu Federal Constituency and the Yagba East/Yagba West/Mopamuro Federal Constituency.
The Action Alliance won a Local Government Council Election in Rivers State, as evidenced by a Certificate of Return issued by the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission.
The Accord Party tendered Certificates of Return issued by the Jigawa State Independent Electoral Commission evidencing victories in Councillorship Elections.
The Zenith Labour Party tendered documentary evidence showing victories in Chairmanship and Councillorship elections in Abia State, supported by Certificates of Return issued by the appropriate electoral authority.
Having recorded that four of the five parties tendered evidence of electoral victories, Justice Lifu then stated: “Section 225A contemplates those who won and remain and not those who carried their mandate to another political party.”
He further stated: “These alleged victories do not in any way insulate or justify their submission of escaping the threshold. The 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Defendants’ victories have been cut short by their defections.”
Odinkalu’s response was unequivocal: “He is shown evidence that the parties that he seeks to deregister have won seats in the National Assembly and local elections respectively. He claims, without citing any authority or justifying his wistfulness, that victories envisaged by Section 225A of the Constitution exclude persons who have defected from the parties. There is nothing of the sort in the text or texture of the provision.”
This point strikes at the heart of the judgment’s legal foundation. Section 225A of the Constitution prescribes electoral performance thresholds that a political party must meet to retain its registration. The provision speaks of parties that fail to “win at least one seat” at specified levels of government. It does not contain any qualification that the persons who won the seats must remain members of the party for the victory to count toward the constitutional threshold.
Justice Lifu effectively invented a doctrine, that a party’s electoral victory is retrospectively nullified for the purposes of Section 225A if the person who won the seat subsequently defects to another party, that has no textual basis in the Constitution, no support in any cited judicial authority, and no precedent in Nigerian electoral jurisprudence.
As Odinkalu noted, the judge did not cite a single authority for this proposition. He did not explain why the constitutional text, which speaks of winning seats, should be read as requiring the continued membership of the persons who won those seats. He did not address the obvious constitutional problem that Section 68 of the Constitution, which deals with the consequences of defection from a political party, provides its own remedies for defection (vacation of seat) and does not link defection to the deregistration provisions of Section 225A.
The implication of Justice Lifu’s reasoning, if accepted, would be extraordinary: a political party could win every seat in the National Assembly, satisfy every conceivable electoral performance threshold, and still be deregistered under Section 225A if all its elected members subsequently defected to other parties. Such an interpretation would make the survival of every political party contingent not on its electoral performance but on the post-election loyalty of its members, a result that the Constitution does not contemplate and that would introduce unprecedented instability into the political party system.
Odinkalu’s third point addresses Justice Lifu’s treatment of the Court of Appeal’s stay order.
In the judgment, Justice Lifu acknowledged that there was “the argument in this suit that the Court of Appeal has stayed the Judgment of this Court.” He stated that the court has “the obligation indeed to observe due deference to the highly honoured orders and decision of appellate Court.”
However, he then stated: “As at the time of adoption of final written addresses of all the learned counsel for the parties in this suit, there was no order for stay of proceedings from any Court served on this Court neither was any such extant order of any appellate Court shown to the Court by any of the learned counsel.”
He proceeded to invoke the principle that “the rules of Court do not have provision for the arrest of judgment,” citing Shettima vs. Goni (2011) and Bob Manuel vs. Briggs (2003) for the proposition that “a judgment of a Court cannot be arrested by litigant under any guise.”
Odinkalu responded: “It is brought to his attention that there is an order of the Court of Appeal staying proceedings in the case. He claims no one can arrest his judgment!”
The critique exposes a fundamental conflation in Justice Lifu’s reasoning. The legal principle that a judgment cannot be “arrested” by a litigant, which is what the cited authorities address, is entirely different from the constitutional obligation of a lower court to obey an order of a superior court staying proceedings.
The “arrest of judgment” doctrine prevents a party from stopping a court from delivering its judgment through procedural manoeuvres at the trial court level. It protects the court’s right to complete its adjudicatory function once hearing has concluded.
However, a stay of proceedings ordered by an appellate court is not an attempt by a litigant to “arrest” judgment. It is an order from a superior court in the constitutional hierarchy exercising its supervisory jurisdiction over the lower court. Section 287 of the Constitution requires all courts to obey the orders of superior courts. A stay of proceedings means precisely what it says: all proceedings, including the delivery of judgment, must stop until the stay is lifted.
By invoking the “arrest of judgment” authorities, Justice Lifu effectively treated an order from the Court of Appeal as though it were a procedural motion by a litigant, collapsing the distinction between a party’s attempt to delay proceedings and a superior court’s exercise of its constitutional authority.
The Court of Appeal itself subsequently addressed this point when it granted a stay of execution of the judgment, describing Justice Lifu’s conduct as “the highest form of judicial impertinence” and invoking the Supreme Court’s characterisation of judges who act in such manner as “unfit for the bench.”
Odinkalu’s use of the phrase “criminal dishonesty” is extraordinary in legal discourse, particularly when directed at a serving judge by a former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission. The phrase implies not merely error or poor judgment but a deliberate and knowing departure from what the law requires, an accusation that carries implications beyond judicial incompetence to potential judicial misconduct.
By describing the judgment as “pathological,” Odinkalu suggests that the three flaws he identified are not isolated errors but symptoms of a deeper pattern, one where the judge’s reasoning is consistently distorted in the direction of a predetermined outcome rather than following the evidence and the law to wherever they lead.
The critique carries particular weight because Odinkalu did not rely on speculation or political commentary. Each of his three points is anchored in the text of the judgment itself. The word “trial” appears in the judgment. The invented defection qualification appears in the judgment without any cited authority. The “arrest of judgment” reasoning appears in the judgment as the basis for ignoring the Court of Appeal’s stay order. The judge’s own words provide the evidence for the critique.
Odinkalu’s three-point critique comes on top of a cascade of condemnation that the judgment has attracted since its delivery on June 15, 2026.
The Court of Appeal described Justice Lifu’s defiance of its stay order as “the highest form of judicial impertinence” and “judicial rascality,” invoking the Supreme Court’s characterisation of judges who act in such manner as “unfit for the bench.”
Okutepa SAN described the conduct as “judicial insubordination” and “judicial impertinence,” comparing it to “a child looking at his father directly in the face and saying, ‘Daddy, you are stupid.'”
Senior Advocate Ubani SAN questioned whether the judgment exceeded the Supreme Court’s position on INEC’s deregistration powers, raising concerns about standing, administrative discretion, and judicial overreach.
INEC itself deposed to a counter-affidavit stating that the affected parties had met the constitutional threshold, and was reportedly not even invited to the judgment delivery.
A civil society organisation has petitioned the CJN and NJC demanding an investigation into Justice Lifu’s conduct.
And on the same day Justice Lifu ordered the deregistration of five parties in Abuja, the Federal High Court in Owerri delivered a directly contradictory judgment holding that the APP was never lawfully deregistered, slapping N20 million in costs on the plaintiff who challenged the party’s status.
The Court of Appeal has since granted a stay of execution, suspending enforcement of the deregistration judgment pending further appellate proceedings.
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