The series of legal setbacks suffered by opposition politicians stemmed from their lack of due diligence, writes BOLAJI ADEBIYI
It is an ironic twist. Receiving Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s former presidential candidate, and his New Nigeria Democratic Party colleague, Rabiu Kwankwaso, into the Nigeria Democratic Congress, the NDC national leader, Seriake Dickson, mocked the African Democratic Congress. “Welcome to the party that does not know status quo ante bellum,” he said.
In early May, Obi and Kwankwaso crossed the carpet from the ADC to the NDC in search of a presidential ticket for the 2027 general election. The immediate impetus for that move was the seemingly intractable leadership crisis in their former party. Buffeted by intense litigation and political manoeuvring, the duo realised that their ambitions could not be realised with the APC, whose leadership had been suspended by the Independent National Electoral Commission following the Court of Appeal’s ruling that the internal litigants revert to the status quo ante bellum.
Whatever relief the itinerant politicians’ move provided proved pyrrhic last Friday, when the Federal High Court, Lokoja Division, ruled to remove the NDC’s lifeline. The party had obtained its registration on the back of the same court’s judgment ordering the electoral body to list it as a political party. That was on 10 December last year. Apparently, the duo were unaware of the tentative status of the party’s registration until last Friday’s ruling, which vacated the earlier judgment and directed the NDC and its challenger, the People’s Movement Party, to revert to the pre-10 December 2025 position.
