Renowned human rights scholar and former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, CGoF, has reacted to the Federal High Court judgment ordering the deregistration of five political parties, including the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Action Peoples Party (APP), Action Alliance (AA), Accord Party, and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), with a pointed comment about the presiding judge that suggested the outcome was foreseeable.
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“Peter Lifu never disappoints. As judge of the Federal High Court, you can predict the cases that will come to his court and you can predict what he will decide,” Odinkalu stated on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, shortly after the ruling was delivered.
The terse comment, laden with implication, raises questions about the predictability of judicial outcomes before the particular judge and whether the allocation of the case to his court and the resulting decision follow a pattern that Odinkalu, one of Nigeria’s most respected legal scholars, considers troubling.
Justice Peter Lifu delivered the ruling on Monday, June 15, 2026, in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/2637/2026, brought by the Incorporated Trustees of the National Forum of Former Legislators, ordering INEC to deregister the five parties for allegedly failing to meet mandatory electoral and performance benchmarks required by the Nigerian Constitution.
The court held that the five political parties breached Section 225A of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), which prescribes specific performance thresholds that registered political parties must meet to maintain their registered status.
Justice Lifu found that the parties failed to satisfy the constitutional requirements on two grounds: they did not secure at least 25 per cent of the votes in any state during the 2023 presidential election, and they failed to win at least one elective seat at the federal (Senate or House of Representatives), state (House of Assembly), or local government level during the general elections and subsequent by-elections.
The plaintiffs argued, and the judge agreed, that allowing non-performing parties to remain on the ballot weakens the integrity of the electoral process and clutters the system ahead of the 2027 elections.
As part of the judgment, Justice Lifu granted several strict orders. INEC is barred from allowing the ADC, Accord, AA, APP, and ZLP to participate in any subsequent elections, including the 2027 polls. The affected parties are restrained from conducting any official party primaries, holding public rallies, or executing political campaigns. INEC is also forbidden from conducting official business with or recognising any of the five platforms.
Beyond Odinkalu’s pointed reaction, other lawyers have raised substantive concerns about the factual basis of the ruling, particularly as it relates to the Zenith Labour Party.
Lawyers who commented on the judgment noted that the ZLP won 15 out of 17 chairmanship seats in the Abia State local government elections held on November 2, 2024, conducted by the Abia State Independent Electoral Commission (ABSIEC). The Young Progressives Party (YPP) won the remaining two seats, while the ruling Labour Party failed to secure any chairmanship position.
“But ZLP actually won the elections in Abia. This judgment seems quite odd and difficult to reconcile with the electoral outcome,” one lawyer observed.
The concern goes to the heart of the court’s finding that the ZLP “failed to win at least one elective seat.” If the ZLP won 15 local government chairmanship seats in Abia State in November 2024, the factual predicate for its deregistration, that it won no elective seat, appears to be contradicted by verified electoral outcomes.
The question then becomes whether the court was presented with complete and accurate evidence of all elections in which the affected parties participated, including local government elections conducted by state independent electoral commissions, or whether the evidence before the court was limited to federal and state elections conducted by INEC, potentially excluding local government results that would have changed the outcome for at least one of the affected parties.
The judgment carries immediate and potentially devastating consequences for several prominent political figures and their 2027 ambitions.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who emerged as the ADC presidential candidate ahead of the 2027 general election after leaving the PDP and subsequently the Labour Party, faces the prospect of his party platform being removed from under him. If the ADC is deregistered, Atiku would need to find an alternative platform or successfully challenge the ruling on appeal before the elections.
Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke, who is billed to seek re-election in the August 15, 2026, governorship election on the platform of the Accord Party, has effectively been knocked out of the race if the judgment stands. The Osun governorship election is only two months away, making the timeline for any appellate intervention extremely tight.
The APP’s deregistration also carries implications given the party’s role as one of the platforms in the House of Representatives opposition bloc, where its two members, including the vocal Ikenga Ugochinyere who is seeking to become Minority Leader, have been active participants in legislative proceedings.
Odinkalu’s reaction, while brief, carries significant weight given his standing as one of Nigeria’s foremost legal scholars and human rights advocates. His statement that “you can predict the cases that will come to his court and you can predict what he will decide” implies two distinct concerns.
The first is about case allocation: the suggestion that certain categories of politically sensitive cases find their way to specific judges is a recurring concern in Nigerian legal discourse, particularly in the Federal High Court system where the assignment of cases to particular judges has been the subject of controversy across multiple administrations.
The second is about predictability of outcomes: Odinkalu’s assertion that the judge’s decisions can be predicted in advance suggests a concern about whether the judicial process is genuinely open-ended or whether the outcomes of certain cases are foreordained by the identity of the presiding judge, a suggestion that, if substantiated, would raise serious questions about judicial independence and the integrity of the decision-making process.
Coming from a scholar of Odinkalu’s calibre, who served as chairman of the NHRC and has written extensively on judicial reform and the rule of law in Africa, the comment is not casual criticism but a serious expression of concern about the administration of justice in politically consequential cases.
Beyond the political implications and the questions about judicial process, the judgment raises several substantive legal questions that appellate courts may need to address.
First, whether Section 225A, which was introduced through a constitutional amendment, was intended to apply retroactively to parties that were registered before its enactment, or whether it applies only to performance benchmarks measured from the point of its coming into effect.
Second, whether local government election results, conducted by state independent electoral commissions rather than INEC, count towards the “one elective seat” threshold prescribed by the Constitution. If they do, the ZLP’s 15 chairmanship victories in Abia would appear to disqualify it from deregistration.
Third, whether a suit brought by a group styled as “Incorporated Trustees of the National Forum of Former Legislators” raises questions about standing and whether the plaintiffs had a sufficient legal interest in the deregistration of political parties to maintain the action.
Fourth, whether the timing of the suit, filed and decided in the immediate run-up to the 2027 election cycle when the affected parties have already conducted primaries and selected candidates, raises concerns about the use of litigation as a tool for eliminating political competition.
The affected parties are expected to file appeals at the Court of Appeal seeking to overturn the judgment. The urgency of the appellate process is particularly acute for the Accord Party given the proximity of the Osun governorship election, and for the ADC given Atiku Abubakar’s presidential ambitions.
If the judgment is upheld on appeal, INEC would be required to remove the five parties from its register, invalidate their candidates across all elections, and bar them from any participation in the 2027 electoral cycle. The candidates who emerged from these parties’ primaries would need to find alternative platforms or abandon their political ambitions for the cycle.
If the judgment is overturned, the affected parties would continue to participate in elections, but the episode would add to the growing catalogue of controversial judicial decisions in politically sensitive cases that have characterised the pre-2027 election period.
Neither the ADC, Accord Party, AA, APP, ZLP, INEC, nor the Federal High Court has issued a public statement on the judgment beyond the ruling itself. The affected parties have not publicly announced whether they intend to appeal, though legal challenges are widely expected given the magnitude of the consequences.
The judgment was delivered by Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on Monday, June 15, 2026.
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