Court dismisses NDC suit challenging Electoral Act provisions
A Federal High Court in Abuja has dismissed a suit filed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) challenging sections of the Electoral Act 2026 relating to the qualification and disqualification of candidates for elective offices.
Delivering judgment on Tuesday, Justice Muhammed Umar held that the suit lacked merit, ruling that the disputed provisions of the Electoral Act complement, rather than conflict with the 1999 Constitution.
The NDC had sued the Attorney General of the Federation, the Clerk of the National Assembly, Senate President Godswill Akpabio and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), seeking declarations that Sections 138 and 77(5) of the Electoral Act 2026 were unconstitutional. The party also urged the court to hold that issues relating to the qualification of candidates could still be raised after elections.
On the preliminary objections, the judge struck out the suit against the Clerk of the National Assembly for failure to serve the required pre-action notice and held that attaching INEC’s election timetable to the originating summons did not make the case a pre-election matter.
Justice Umar also ruled that the Constitution provides for the qualifications and disqualifications for elective offices, while the Electoral Act only sets out the procedure and timeline for challenging the emergence of candidates from party primaries.
“The provision of Section 138 of the Electoral Act 2026 complements the provision of the Constitution, but is not in conflict with it. The contention of the plaintiff that Section 138 is inconsistent with the Constitution is of no merit,” the judge held.
He further ruled that any aggrieved party seeking to challenge the qualification of a candidate must do so during the pre-election stage and not after the election.
The court also declined to invalidate Section 77(5) of the Electoral Act, holding that the issue had already been settled by the Court of Appeal and that lower courts are bound by judicial precedent, before dismissing the suit in its entirety.
