By O. G. Ogbom, Esq., Ph.D
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Reconciling Party Autonomy, Constitutional Supremacy and the Right to Internal Democracy
Introduction
Political parties are indispensable institutions in a constitutional democracy. They aggregate interests, recruit political leaders, formulate policies and, most importantly, determine the candidates through whom citizens ultimately exercise their electoral choices. Yet, in Nigeria, political parties have increasingly become theatres of leadership disputes, factional struggles, contested congresses, disputed primaries and competing claims to legitimacy.
The natural consequence has been a growing tendency to take intra-party disputes before the courts. This development raises a difficult constitutional question: where should the judiciary draw the line between legitimate judicial protection of the law and impermissible interference in the internal affairs of political parties?
The question has acquired renewed significance following a series of decisions of the Supreme Court in 2025 and 2026, particularly Anyanwu v. Emmanuel & Ors., the Labour Party leadership litigation, the Peoples Democratic Party leadership crisis and the African Democratic Congress dispute. The enactment of the Electoral Act 2026 has further complicated the question by expressly providing that courts shall not entertain matters pertaining to the internal affairs of political parties. Yet, almost immediately after the new legislation came into force, constitutional questions arose concerning whether the National Assembly could go so far as to exclude the jurisdiction of courts in this area. The Court of Appeal, in Zenith Party v. Attorney-General of the Federation & 2 Ors., Appeal No. CA/ABJ/CV/750/2026, subsequently struck down sections 77(5), (6), (7) and 84(2) of the Electoral Act 2026 as unconstitutional.
The emerging jurisprudence, therefore, presents an apparent paradox. The courts insist that political parties enjoy substantial autonomy, while simultaneously asserting the constitutional authority of the judiciary to police illegality. The real issue, therefore, is not whether courts should intervene in political party affairs. It is when, and on what legal basis, they should intervene.
Sections 221–229 of the Constitution recognise the special constitutional position of political parties. Section 222 prescribes conditions for the existence of political parties, while section 223 requires their constitutions and rules to provide for the periodic election of principal officers and governing bodies on a democratic basis. Most significantly, section 228 empowers the National Assembly to make laws providing guidelines and rules to ensure internal democracy within political parties, including rules governing party primaries, congresses and conventions. It also permits the conferment of powers on INEC to ensure that political parties observe internal democratic practices. This constitutional arrangement produces an important distinction.
Political parties are private associations with considerable autonomy, but they are not ordinary private associations. Their activities determine who may contest for public office and, ultimately, who may exercise governmental power. Their autonomy is therefore constitutionally recognised, but it exists within a constitutional and statutory framework. The question becomes whether judicial enforcement of that framework amounts to an intrusion into party affairs.
For decades, Nigerian courts have adopted a policy of judicial restraint in matters concerning the internal administration of political parties. The Supreme Court has repeatedly maintained that questions concerning party membership, leadership and the selection or sponsorship of candidates are ordinarily matters for the political party itself. In Ndukwe v. Ayu (2023) 5 NWLR (Pt. 1877) 309, the Supreme Court reiterated that courts lack the statutory vires to interfere with political decisions taken by political parties in the running of their domestic affairs. Similarly, in Kabir v. APC & Ors. (2024) LPELR-61712(SC), the Supreme Court described questions concerning party membership and sponsorship of candidates as matters falling within the domestic affairs of political parties and therefore ordinarily non-justiciable. The principle was forcefully reaffirmed in Anyanwu v. Emmanuel & Ors. (2025) LPELR-80882(SC). The dispute concerned the position of National Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party. The trial court had ordered the removal of Senator Samuel Anyanwu, while the Court of Appeal affirmed the decision by a majority. The Supreme Court reversed the lower courts.
The apex court held that the question of who occupies the position of National Secretary of the PDP was an internal affair of the political party and was not justiciable. It further held that the plaintiff lacked the necessary legal interest to institute the action.
The significance of Anyanwu is considerable. It was not merely a declaration that courts should be cautious. It was a reaffirmation that there are questions which the judicial process is institutionally incapable of determining without trespassing into the political autonomy of parties. But this principle should not be misunderstood. The doctrine of non-justiciability does not mean that political parties operate outside the law.
There is an important distinction between interference with a party’s political decision and judicial enforcement of the law governing that decision. A court ordinarily should not decide which politician a political party ought to prefer as its chairman. Neither should it determine which candidate is politically more suitable for the party. But where a party’s action violates a constitutional provision, a statute, a binding judicial order or an enforceable legal right, the argument that the matter is merely an “internal affair” becomes considerably weaker. This distinction is critical.
Internal democracy cannot logically mean that party officials are free to disregard the Constitution, electoral legislation or the party’s own legally binding rules. Indeed, section 228 of the Constitution itself contemplates legislation designed to ensure internal democracy. The challenge for the judiciary is therefore to ensure that the doctrine of party autonomy does not become a constitutional shelter for illegality.
The most illuminating recent example is the Supreme Court’s decision concerning the PDP’s controversial Ibadan National Convention. The PDP held its national convention in Ibadan on 15 and 16 November 2025 amid a deep leadership crisis. The Federal High Court had restrained the party from proceeding with the convention. The party nevertheless proceeded, and the dispute eventually reached the Supreme Court. On 30 April 2026, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal of the Tanimu Turaki-led faction and upheld the nullification of the Ibadan convention. The majority found that the convention had been conducted in defiance of a subsisting order of the Federal High Court and described the conduct as an abuse of court process.
This decision deserves careful consideration.
At first sight, it appears to sit uneasily beside Anyanwu v. Emmanuel. If party leadership and conventions are internal matters, why was the Supreme Court prepared to invalidate a party convention? The answer lies in the basis of the intervention. The Court did not simply decide which faction it preferred to lead the PDP. Rather, the majority focused on the legal consequences of conducting the convention in defiance of a subsisting court order. In other words, the Court was not necessarily exercising a general power to supervise the PDP’s internal politics. It was enforcing the authority of the judicial process. That distinction provides a useful constitutional boundary. Courts should not become managers of political parties. But political parties cannot become immune from the authority of the courts.
The ADC Saga
The African Democratic Congress litigation provides another useful illustration. The dispute concerned competing claims to the leadership of the ADC, including the leadership associated with former Senate President David Mark. On 30 April 2026, the Supreme Court set aside a Court of Appeal order directing the parties to maintain the status quo ante bellum and sent the substantive dispute back to the Federal High Court for determination. The Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal had exceeded its authority by issuing the preservative order after disposing of the interlocutory appeal. The significance of the decision lies less in who ultimately leads the ADC and more in what the Supreme Court refused to do. The apex court did not purport to finally determine the substantive leadership dispute. Instead, it insisted that the appropriate court should determine the substantive questions according to law.
This demonstrates an important principle: judicial restraint does not mean judicial abdication. A court may refuse to determine a political question while still ensuring that judicial proceedings themselves are conducted according to law.
The debate has now moved beyond judicial precedent into the realm of legislation. The Electoral Act 2026 introduced a significant statutory intervention in the perennial controversy over judicial involvement in the internal affairs of political parties. Section 83(5) of the Act provides that “no Court in Nigeria shall entertain jurisdiction over any suit or matter pertaining to the internal affairs of a political party.”
Section 83(6) further seeks to regulate proceedings instituted in defiance of this prohibition, including restrictions on the grant of interim or interlocutory injunctions and provisions prescribing financial consequences for litigants and counsel. The legislative objective is not difficult to appreciate. Nigerian political parties have, over the years, witnessed prolonged leadership struggles, competing factions, disputed congresses and conventions, and extensive resort to interlocutory applications. Litigation has, in some instances, become an extension of intra-party political contests, with competing factions seeking judicial orders capable of altering the balance of power within their parties.
However, the constitutionality of the legislative response itself became a subject of judicial scrutiny.
In Christian Egbuchinem Nduka v. Independent National Electoral Commission & Ors., Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/721/2026, the Federal High Court, Abuja Division, presided over by Hon. Justice J. K. Omotosho, considered a constitutional challenge to section 83(6)(b) of the Electoral Act 2026. In a judgment delivered on 23 July 2026, the Court declared section 83(6)(b) unconstitutional and invalid to the extent that it imposed a mandatory minimum cost of ₦10 million each upon counsel and the claimant in proceedings concerning the internal affairs of political parties.
The reasoning is important to the broader question of judicial intervention in party affairs. Justice Omotosho held, in substance, that the determination and award of costs is a judicial function which must remain within the discretion of the court. The National Assembly could not, by legislation, predetermine the minimum costs that a judge must impose irrespective of the circumstances of a particular case. Significantly, however, the Court did not invalidate section 83(5). Justice Omotosho upheld the provision which excludes judicial jurisdiction over matters pertaining to the internal affairs of political parties. The Court considered section 83(5) to be substantially a statutory codification of an already established principle in the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court—that questions concerning party leadership, membership, congresses and internal administration are, subject to recognised exceptions, matters within the domestic sphere of political parties. In reaching that conclusion, the Court relied on authorities including Ufomba v. INEC, Oni & Anor. v. Oyebanji & Ors., Anyanwu v. Emmanuel & Ors., Osagie & Ors. v. Enoghama & Ors. and Tumbido v. INEC & Ors.
The judgment, therefore, presents a fascinating constitutional distinction. The Court accepted the legislature’s attempt to keep purely internal party disputes outside the courtroom, but rejected the legislature’s attempt to dictate the consequences that must follow when a litigant invokes the judicial process.
The debate over the permissible extent of legislative and judicial intervention in the affairs of political parties assumed a new dimension with the decision of the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, in Zenith Party v. Independent National Electoral Commission, Appeal No. CA/ABJ/CV/750/2026, delivered on 16 July 2026. The appeal arose from the judgment of the Federal High Court, Abuja, delivered by Mohammed Umar J., which had dismissed the Zenith Party’s challenge to provisions of the Electoral Act 2026 regulating political party membership registers and the nomination of candidates. A three-member panel of the Court of Appeal, led by Balkisu Bello Aliyu, JCA, unanimously allowed the appeal, with Eberechi Nyesom-Wike, JCA, delivering the lead judgment. At the centre of the dispute were sections 77(5), 77(6), 77(7) and 84(2) of the Electoral Act 2026.
Section 77(5) restricted participation in party primaries, congresses and conventions to members whose names appeared in the membership register submitted to INEC within the prescribed period. Section 77(6) prohibited a political party from using any membership register other than the register submitted to the Commission, while section 77(7) imposed the particularly severe consequence that a party which failed to submit its membership register within the stipulated period would be ineligible to field a candidate for the election. Section 84(2), on the other hand, prescribed direct primaries or consensus as the methods through which political parties could nominate candidates.
The Court of Appeal declared all four provisions unconstitutional, null and void. Its reasoning was anchored principally on the constitutional status and autonomy of political parties under sections 221 and 222 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). The Court considered that the impugned provisions went beyond permissible regulation and amounted to an unconstitutional legislative intrusion into matters constitutionally entrusted to political parties. The decision is particularly significant in relation to section 84(2). By restricting political parties to direct primaries or consensus, the Electoral Act had purported to determine the permissible method by which a political party could select its candidates. The Court of Appeal considered this an excessive legislative interference with the constitutional sphere of the political parties. In effect, the judgment restored to political parties a broader discretion to determine the procedure through which they select or nominate their candidates, subject, of course, to the Constitution and other valid legal requirements. The Court’s treatment of sections 77(5)–(7) is equally important. The decision did not abolish the requirement for political parties to maintain membership registers. Rather, it invalidated the statutory mechanisms that made the INEC-submitted register the exclusive basis for participation in party activities and, more significantly, threatened a party with exclusion from an election for failure to comply with the prescribed registration requirement. Reports of the judgment indicate that the general obligation relating to party membership registers was not itself struck down.
Two principles appear to compete in this area of Nigerian electoral jurisprudence. On the one hand, political parties are autonomous institutions, and courts ought to exercise considerable restraint in interfering with their internal affairs. On the other hand, political parties are not entirely private associations; they are constitutional actors whose activities must conform to the Constitution and applicable electoral legislation. Neither principle can safely be discarded. Unrestrained judicial intervention risks transforming the courts into arbiters of every intra-party disagreement, thereby turning judges into political referees and encouraging litigants to deploy the judicial process as an extension of political contests. Conversely, excessive judicial restraint presents an equally serious danger: if every alleged illegality is simply characterised as an “internal affair,” dominant factions could manipulate party constitutions, exclude members, conduct unlawful congresses, disregard statutory obligations and suppress legitimate dissent without effective legal scrutiny. Such an approach would produce the paradoxical result of protecting party autonomy at the expense of the very internal democracy which that autonomy is constitutionally intended to foster.
There is, however, a deeper democratic question that cannot be overlooked. A political party is not merely a private club or voluntary association; it is one of the principal gateways through which citizens gain access to public office and, ultimately, the machinery of government. The quality of democracy within political parties will therefore inevitably influence the quality of democracy in the wider political system. A party that does not provide meaningful opportunities for participation, transparent processes for the election of its officers, or fair and credible mechanisms for the selection of candidates may find it difficult to fulfil its broader democratic role once entrusted with political power. It is against this background that section 223 of the Constitution requires the constitutions and rules of political parties to provide for the periodic election of their principal officers and governing bodies on a democratic basis, while section 228 expressly empowers the National Assembly to make laws prescribing guidelines and rules to ensure internal democracy within political parties. The constitutional scheme thus recognises party autonomy, but does not contemplate autonomy divorced from democratic accountability.
The Way Forward: Judicial Restraint, Not Judicial Retreat
What Nigeria requires is not the complete withdrawal of the courts from the affairs of political parties, but a more coherent and principled doctrine of judicial restraint. The courts should recognise that while political parties enjoy a constitutionally protected sphere of autonomy, that autonomy does not place them beyond the reach of the law. A useful approach would be for the courts, at the threshold of every intra-party dispute, to distinguish between a matter that is genuinely political and one that raises an enforceable legal question. Where the complaint concerns nothing more than political preference, party strategy or the choice between competing political interests, judicial intervention should ordinarily be avoided. Where, however, the dispute alleges a breach of the Constitution, a statutory obligation, a binding provision of the party’s own constitution or another enforceable legal right, the mere description of the matter as an “internal party affair” should not automatically deprive the courts of jurisdiction.
Conclusion
The Nigerian judiciary stands at a delicate constitutional crossroads between the autonomy of political parties and the supremacy of the law. While political parties must be allowed sufficient space to organise themselves, select their leaders and pursue their political strategies without unnecessary judicial interference, that autonomy cannot place them beyond the reach of the Constitution, electoral legislation or lawful orders of the courts. The recent jurisprudence illustrates the need for this balance: Anyanwu v. Emmanuel underscores the continuing principle that disputes concerning party leadership and membership are ordinarily matters for the political party rather than the courtroom, while the Labour Party litigation reflects the courts’ reluctance to assume the role of arbiters of internal party leadership. Conversely, the PDP litigation demonstrates that party autonomy does not immunise a political party from compliance with subsisting judicial orders, while the enactment of section 83 of the Electoral Act 2026 and the subsequent constitutional challenges, including Zenith Party v. Attorney-General of the Federation & Ors., show that the boundaries of judicial intervention remain contested.
The proper constitutional posture, therefore, should be neither judicial activism in political party affairs nor judicial abstinence in the face of illegality, but judicial restraint coupled with judicial courage—restraint where the dispute concerns political preference, party strategy or internal political choice, and courage where the cloak of “internal affairs” is invoked to shield illegality, constitutional violations, disobedience to court orders or infringement of enforceable legal rights.
Ultimately, the critical question is not whether courts should intervene in the affairs of political parties, but when an internal party dispute ceases to be merely an internal affair and becomes a question of law. How the Nigerian judiciary answers that question will significantly shape not only the future of intra-party litigation, but also the quality and credibility of Nigeria’s democracy.
O. G. Ogbom, Esq., Ph.D.,is a Port Harcourt-based legal practitioner. He may be reached via ogbomgoodluck@gmail.com or ogbom@lawfreightattorneys.com.ng.
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