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The Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday dismissed a suit filed by Senator Ned Nwoko, seeking to quash the emergence of Ifeanyi Okowa, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for Delta North Senatorial District.
Okowa is the immediate past governor of the state.
The defendants in the suit are the APC, Okowa and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
In his ruling, Justice Mohammed Umar, found that the case was incompetent from the outset because it was brought through a lawyer rather than by Nwoko himself, ruling that the defect could not be corrected by an amendment.
The judge accepted the arguments of the defendants’ lawyers, including Kehinde Ogunwumiju, SAN, and rejected Nwoko’s request to amend the original summons.
Nwoko had filed the lawsuit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1062/2026, in his name but through a person identified in court proceedings as his lawyer, Dr. Mike Nwoko.
He later asked to amend the original lawsuits to show that he personally initiated the pre-election lawsuit instead of acting through his lawyer, but the defendants opposed the request.
Justice Umar examined the original summons and found that the action was initiated through Nwoko’s lawyer and then filed in a representative capacity.
Relying on section 285(14) of the 1999 Constitution and section 88(2) of the Electoral Act, 2026, the judge held that only an aspirant who participated in the primaries of the party in question has the legal right to initiate a pre-election lawsuit.
It ruled that “the provisions were clear, explicit and unambiguous in conferring the right to initiate pre-election action on an aspirant, who participated in the primaries of the party in question”.
The judge held that the right created by the Constitution and the Election Act is a statutory personal right which belongs exclusively to the aspirant concerned and cannot be assigned or exercised through an agent or attorney.
