The Federal High Court in Abuja has struck out a suit filed by Senator Ned Nwoko seeking to nullify the emergence of former Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for the Delta North Senatorial District in the 2027 elections.
Justice Mohammed Umar, in a ruling delivered on Monday, held that the suit was fundamentally incompetent from the outset and could not be salvaged through an amendment, effectively ending Nwoko’s legal challenge to Okowa’s candidacy at the trial court.
The suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1062/2026, was filed against the APC, Okowa and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The court upheld preliminary objections raised by the defendants, including counsel to Okowa, Kehinde Ogunwumiju, SAN, who argued that the action was incurably defective because it was instituted through a purported attorney rather than by Nwoko personally.
Court records showed that although the suit bore Nwoko’s name, it was commenced through an individual identified as his attorney, Mike Nwoko. The senator later applied to amend the originating summons to reflect that he personally initiated the pre-election suit.
However, the defendants opposed the application, insisting that the defect went to the root of the court’s jurisdiction.
In his ruling, Justice Umar agreed with the defence, holding that the originating summons clearly indicated that the case was filed in a representative capacity through an attorney.
The judge held that the Constitution and the Electoral Act expressly confer the right to institute a pre-election suit only on an aspirant who personally participated in the relevant party primary.
According to the court, “the provisions were clear, explicit and unambiguous in vesting the right to institute a pre-election action in an aspirant who participated in the relevant party primary.”
Justice Umar ruled that the right to challenge the conduct or outcome of a party primary is a personal statutory right that cannot be delegated, transferred or exercised through an agent or attorney.
He further held that if the Constitution or the Electoral Act intended to permit such actions through representatives, the law would have expressly provided for it.
The court noted that neither Section 285(14) of the 1999 Constitution nor Section 88(2) of the Electoral Act, 2026, authorises an attorney, agent or representative to commence a pre-election action on behalf of an aspirant.
Rejecting Nwoko’s application to amend the suit, the judge ruled that an amendment could not cure a process that was void from inception.
He stressed that “no amendment could breathe life into an originating process that was already a nullity,” adding that a court could only permit amendments where a competent and subsisting action existed before it.
Having found that the originating process was incapable of conferring jurisdiction on the court, Justice Umar dismissed the application to amend the suit and struck out the substantive case for want of jurisdiction.
