Court Rules APP Validly Registered, Fit For Polls

The Federal High Court sitting in Owerri has dismissed a suit seeking to deregister the Action Peoples Party (APP), even as it described the plaintiff, Mazi Franklin Ngoforo, as a busybody who wasted the court’s time.

Justice I.N. Oweibo, in his judgment in  suit No. FHC/OW/CS/39/2026, resolved all five questions for determination against the plaintiff and refused all the reliefs sought.

Ngoforo had dragged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the attorney-general of the federation and the Action Peoples Party to court, asking among other things, for an order to deregister the APP because it didn’t clinch any position in the 2023 general elections.

Further, the plaintiff had argued that APP’s participation in electoral activities, including the 2024 Rivers State Local Government Elections and local council polls in Jigawa State, was unlawful because the party had purportedly ceased to exist following the February 6, 2020 deregistration exercise.

To support the claim, the plaintiff relied on media reports and a supreme court judgment affirming INEC’s powers to deregister political parties that failed to meet constitutional requirements.

However, the court found that the plaintiff failed to establish that APP was ever lawfully deregistered.

Justice Oweibo held that the plaintiff failed to prove that the 3rd defendant (APP) was ever deregistered by INEC during the 2020 deregistration exercise.

The court ruled that the plaintiff conducted extensive searches but could not produce any evidence that APP was lawfully deregistered but that instead, evidence before the court showed that APP had obtained an enrolled order from an Abuja federal high court in Suit No. FCT/HC/BW/CV/176/2020 restraining INEC from deregistering it, saying that order, the court found, remained subsisting.

Justice Oweibo said “the 3rd defendant was at no time deregistered. As a political party that is registered and recognized by INEC, its participation in electoral activities was in line with the law,” the judgment read in part.

The court noted that the enrolled order, tendered by APP, directed that the leave granted for judicial review should operate as a stay of all actions connected with the subject matter of the suit. According to the court, the plaintiff failed to controvert the authenticity of the order or prove that it was invalid.

Further, the court held that INEC was under no obligation to remove from its register a political party that had not been lawfully deregistered.

Justice Oweibo said, “I am of the opinion that this is a suit that should never have been filed. The plaintiff was fully aware… that the 3rd defendant was not deregistered. He merely wasted the time of the court and the defendants.”   The APP had denied allegations that its continued participation in elections was fraudulent, maintaining that all its electoral activities were conducted within the framework of the law.

In its final determination, the court resolved all five issues submitted for adjudication against the plaintiff and dismissed the suit in its entirety.

Consequently, the court awarded N10,000,000 (Ten Million Naira) against the plaintiff in favor of INEC (1st defendant) and another N10,000,000 (Ten Million Naira) against the plaintiff in favor of APP (3rd defendant), totaling ₦20 million.

The ruling effectively affirmed that the Action Peoples Party remains a fully registered political party, unencumbered by any deregistration order, and eligible to participate in elections.

Legal observers say the judgment sends a strong warning against the use of frivolous litigations to harass political parties through the backdoor.