Secretariat: PDP Withdraws Suit, Alleges Partiality

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said it filed to discontinue its suit before Justice Joyce Abdulmaliki, citing alleged partiality.

The national publicity secretary of the party, Comrade Ini Ememobong, disclosed this in a statement in Abuja yesterday.

The party last year filed the suit against the Nigeria Police, seeking an order of the court directing the police to remove their blockade, vacate its secretariat, and hand the same over to it as the legitimately elected leadership of the party.

Explaining why it is seeking to withdraw the suit, the party said, “Today, we filed a notice of discontinuance in suit FHC/ABJ/CS/2520/2025, which we filed against the Nigeria Police seeking an order of the court directing the police to remove their blockade, vacate our secretariat, and hand same over to us, as the legitimately elected leadership of the party.”

The party said the case was assigned by the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court to Justice Joyce Abdulmalik, who is among the three judges it had complained about being partial towards it.

“Before this suit, we had earlier written to the Chief Judge complaining about the obvious partiality of three out of the twelve judges of the Federal High Court in Abuja.

“In the said letter, we had exhaustively expressed our doubt and complete lack of faith in their capacity to fairly dispense justice in matters where PDP is involved.”

The PDP spokesman said despite the information, the Chief Judge still assigned its case to her.

He added, “When we appeared in the matter, we filed a motion for recusal asking that Justice Abdulmalik recuses herself from the matter and return the file to the CJ for reassignment.

“Rather than do the needful which is to take the motion, and rule on it, the Judge ruled that she will manage the case in a way convenient for her , which is to take the all motions (including the motion for recusal) alongside the hearing of the case and at the point of judgement, give her ruling on the motion for recusal before the judgement.

“This in our view, defeats fair hearing as we have indicated our complete loss of trust in her ability to be fair in the matter, or any other matter concerning the PDP.

“To this end, we filed a notice of discontinuance as provided for in Order 50 Rule 2(1) of the Federal High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 2019, which entitles a plaintiff to withdraw a suit without the leave of the court within fourteen days of the receipt of the last defendant’s statement of defence.

“It is on record that we filed the notice of discontinuance three days after the statement of defence of the last defendant was filed and served, therefore being securely within the provisions of the rules.

“Today, after our counsel informed the Court of our intention to discontinue citing the relevant rules, the judge listened to arguments by all the counsel in the matter and ruled, dismissing instead of striking out our case. This again exacerbates our party’s subsisting fear about the impartiality of the court.’

The party said it will continue to have respect for judges and the judiciary generally.

The party quoted Justice Niki Tobi JSC (as he then was), thus: ‘the need for Nigerian judges to maintain a very big distance from politics and politicians. Our constitution forbids any mingling. As Judges, we must obey the Constitution. The two professions do not meet and will never meet at all in our democracy in the discharge of their functions… the expressions, politician and Judge are opposites, so to say, in their functional contents… their waters must never meet in the same way Rivers Niger and Benue meet at the confluence near Lokoja. If they meet, the victim will be democracy most of the time, and that will be bad for sovereign Nigeria… and so Judges should, on no account, dance to the music played by politicians because it will completely destroy their role as independent umpires in the judicial process.’