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Judiciary is the arm of government imbued with the power to interpret the laws and settle disputes among the government, institutions, organisations, and the people in society. It is the branch of government with the powers to uphold the rule of law. The concept of rule of law stipulates that everything should be done in accordance with the law. According to Professor A. V. Dicey in his lecture on English Law at the University of Oxford in 1885, rule of law means the absolute supremacy or predominance of regular law as opposed to the influence of arbitrary power, and excludes the existence of arbitrariness, of prerogative or even of wide discretionary authority on the part of the government.
The concept of rule of law cannot flourish without unalloyed obedience to the judgement and decisions of the courts. Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, JSC (as he then was) in Governor of Lagos State v Ojukwu (1986) 1 NWLR (Pt. 18) 621 at 641, said “The court system cannot be maintained without the willingness of parties to abide by the findings and orders of a competent court, until reversed on appeal. This presupposes that no party and no court of subordinate or even co-ordinate jurisdiction can say: I do not like the order made and I will not obey it.” The eminent, departed, learned jurist concluded that any posture of disobeying courts’ judgements has to be condemned in the strongest of terms if we are not to say good-bye to the rule of Law. This is so, for civilisation cannot flourish in a society in which the rule of law is not respected. Without law and obedience to law, civilisation would collapse
It is bad enough that ordinary people disobey court judgements, because one may argue that they might not understand the full import of the disobedience, but a court disobeying a court order is unpardonable, because the court itself understands the consequences of ordinary people disobeying its orders. This is why the Court of Appeal, in the appeal of the African Democratic Party (ADC) and 5 others v. The Incorporated Trustees of National Forum of Former Legislators described the earlier judgment by Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court as a display of judicial impertinence. They went to the extent of stipulating that the learned Judge of the Federal High Court is unfit to occupy his position. If the learned trial judge had heeded the counsel of Oputa, JSC, that rule of law demands that no court of subordinate or even co-ordinate jurisdiction should say that it does not like the order made by a higher court and will not obey it, maybe the learned judge will not be in the position he is now.
The genesis of the case was that the purported Incorporated Trustees of the National Forum of Former Legislators (NFFL) brought an action before the Federal High Court under Justice Peter Lifu seeking an order of the court to compel INEC to deregister five political parties, including ADC. INEC objected to the deregistration in its affidavit because the whole political parties met the constitutional requirements for their continued registration. The defendants, sensing that Justice Lifu is not proceeding with the case in accordance with the law, appealed against some earlier rulings and successfully obtained a stay of proceedings on the matter at the trial court pending the decision of the Court of Appeal.
Curiously, Justice Lifu disregarded the order of stay of proceedings by the COA, on 22 May 2026, and went further on Monday, 15 June 2026, to decide that the affected parties breached Section 225 of the Nigerian Constitution. This section gives INEC the power to deregister political parties that failed to win any elective position or 25 per cent of the votes in the previous round of elections at the federal, state and local government levels. INEC put evidence before the court that ADC won three seats in the House of Representatives which automatically shields it from deregistration, yet the learned judge, in the words of the Court of Appeal, manufactured evidence which was not placed before it by the Plaintiff, that the House of Representatives members have defected, to reach his flawed judgement.
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The judge neglected the fact that the Plaintiff is not a juristic person and as such lacks the locus standi to bring the case before the court. The COA observed it and decided on 28 July 2026 that the Federal High Court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the matter, and subsequently allowed the appeal of ADC and other Appellants in the matter. Jurisdiction is the life blood of a matter which dies where a court handles a matter in which it lacks the jurisdiction to handle. This is why the COA described the judgement of Justice Lifu as a demonstration of judicial rascality. This is a legal term which refers to the deliberate abuse of judicial power, where judges or courts act recklessly, capriciously, or unethically to circumvent the law. It describes a culture of lawlessness within the law, where the legal process is manipulated to serve ulterior or political motives rather than to uphold justice.
The only reason our democracy is in peril is because of judicial rascality. Despite all warnings by the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the National Judicial Council (NJC), some judges have operated as an island on their own, interpreting the laws they made on the bench, bereft of the imprimatur of the legislature. The judges have usurped the powers of the executive and the legislature from the bench with the instrumentality of perverse judgement.
Justice Lifu by his judgement of 15 June 2026 usurped the power of the executive when he neglected the deposition of a federal executive body, INEC, and went further to deregister five political parties even when INEC, which has the power to deregister political parties, refused to deregister ADC and others because they didn’t merit deregistration by the Constitution. Justice Lifu also usurped the power of the legislature when he made his own law on the bench and gave judgement on the strength of his own law not the Constitution. Lifu deregistered ADC on his own law that the three House of Representatives members of ADC defected to other parties. The basis for deregistration of parties by the Constitution is failure to win any elective position or 25 per cent of the votes in the previous round of elections at the federal, state and local government levels, not the defection of already elected members. The job of a judge is to interpret the law, not to make the law or execute it. Respectfully, Lifu failed in this regard.
Were it not for the timely intervention of the Court of Appeal on this matter, the flawed judgement of Justice Lifu, if it were immediately enforced, would have led to a deluge of disqualifications of candidates running for elective offices in the 2027 general elections and the upcoming off-cycle governorship election slated for August this year in Osun State. Among notable candidates in the firing line of the verdict are Atiku Abubakar, who recently emerged as the presidential candidate of the ADC, and Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, who is seeking a second term in office on the platform of Accord Party. This is a revelation of how powerful a court judgement is. Now that the judiciary itself has become aware of the danger posed by some judges to our democracy, it must therefore rise up to defend the judiciary.
In pursuance to this cleansing effort, the immediate action of the judiciary should be to relieve the suspect judges of all the political cases under their authority. The Chief Judges of the different High Courts should immediately reassign all the political cases under Lifu and other judges since in the opinion of the COA, he is unfit to act in that capacity.
Following the confession by the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, that Hon Abejide and Nafiu Bala Gombe should remain in the ADC to scatter the party and destroy it, assuring them of his support; following the confession of President Tinubu that he derives joy in seeing the opposition scattered; following the position of the Attorney-General of the Federation in supporting the non juristic person, the NFFL, to deregister five political parties illegally, the judiciary must rise up to defend the opposition parties within the bounds of the law. It is obvious that the ruling party is using the instrumentality of some suspect judges to manipulate the legal process to achieve ulterior and political motives rather than uphold justice.
The National Judicial Council must immediately remove from the bench any judge who was adjudged unfit to be on the bench. If the judgement of the court is sacrosanct and must be obeyed, no matter how perverse, it then implies that the judgement of the COA that holds a judge unfit to be on the bench must be obeyed immediately. Anything short of that will offend the concept of rule of law.
Above all, the judges involved should act honourably by voluntarily stepping aside from entertaining any political case in which they have ruled in a very suspicious manner. What is the wisdom in Justice Peter Lifu continuing with the cases involving ADC or the other political parties after he has already passed a judgement ordering their deregistration? Since in his own opinion, such political parties have become nonexistent, it is submitted, respectfully, that he should give up on all the cases involving the political parties. For now, the judiciary is on trial, not the opposition parties, and it is only the judiciary that can purge itself and save our democracy.
