CHIKA ESOMONU argues for the speedy resolution of crisis within the party
Since the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) released the official campaign timetable for the 2027 general elections, political parties and candidates are expected to begin public campaigns – in form of rallies, media advertisements, voter engagement, and grassroots mobilization.
This development has again brought to fore the need for the Supreme Court to speedily resolve the judicial problem of the Labour Party (LP) as the lower courts overstepped bounds by wading into LP’s internal affairs.
Instructively, millions of ordinary Nigerians – workers, artisans, traders, students, transporters, joined the LP movement because they saw it as theirs and decided to own, promote and protect the party during elections.
That is why this moment hurts that a party built, supported and promoted by ordinary Nigerians can be taken away by court orders and elite bargains. The dispute is whether our courts will protect the rule of law, or normalize judicial hijack of political parties. We enjoin the apex court to revisit its earlier verdict of April 4, 2025 when it said: “We will not be used to hijack a party.” That day, their Lordships did three critical things that the lower courts ignored or overlooked. First, they protected jurisdiction. The court reminded everyone that judges do not run parties and pointed everyone back to the constitution and the party’s own rules.
Second, it affirmed that membership, discipline, and leadership of a political party are its internal matters. It did not declare anyone the national chairman. It did not dissolve any NEC. It said, in essence: “This house has its own landlord. Go settle it there first.” That is judicial wisdom. Third, it preserved the status quo ante. The apex court neither declared Abure’s seat vacant nor installed a new leadership. By refusing to make that declaration, it left things as they were before the litigation and told the parties to go back to their constitution. That was the law.
As we await a ruling expected to address the areas where the lower courts missed it, four legal pillars demand Supreme Court’s attention. First, jurisdiction was breached when the Federal High Court issued an order directing INEC to recognise the Nenadi-LP faction. That directive crossed from adjudication into administration. If this stands, any member can run to court tomorrow to install a national chairman or executives in any party. That is nothing more than judicial endorsement and a judicial hijack, not rule of law.
Section 6 of the Constitution vests judicial power in courts to interpret laws, not to run political parties. Section 82(1) of the Electoral Act 2022 also places the conduct of party congresses and leadership succession within party constitutions.
Second, internal affairs were inverted: The Court of Appeal described the Nenadi-LP NEC as a product of “doctrine of necessity.” With respect, necessity cannot override a party’s constitution. You cannot use a legal phrase to break into a house and then call it renovation. April 4, 2025 told us to stay out. The lower courts walked in. The Supreme Court has consistently held that matters of party membership, discipline, and leadership are non-justiciable internal affairs. The purpose is simple: judges are not delegates of party conventions. Yet the lower courts cited internal affairs and then did the opposite. The Court of Appeal, in its ruling described the Nenadi-LP faction’s NEC as arising from a “doctrine of necessity” thereby constituting a label used to justify stepping into the internal management of the party and validating a parallel structure. That is not deference. That is intervention. You cannot use the shield of “internal affairs” to justify the very intrusion the doctrine forbids.
Third, the April 4, 2025 status quo precedent was destroyed by misapplying the Supreme Court decision. The lower courts did what the Supreme Court deliberately refused to do on April 4, 2025. They declared a winner. They altered the status quo. They turned judicial restraint into judicial action. On April 4, 2025, Nigeria’s highest court reminded us that courts must exercise restraint where party constitutions provide internal mechanisms. The principle was to prevent forum shopping and judicial overreach. Both the Lifu order and the Appeal Court’s “doctrine of necessity” reasoning stand in direct tension with that guidance. As the final custodian of its own pronouncements, only the Supreme Court can reconcile the record and ensure the April 4, 2025 judgment is applied as intended: hands off internal leadership, unless a clear constitutional breach is shown. Here, no such breach was proven, only competing claims that deliberately shifted attention away from the sanctity of the 2024 Owerri LP convention to the issue of claiming INEC leadership recognition within the party.
Fourth, the need to protect the ordinary people against the elites. The LP was founded, funded by workers, students, and market people. They have legitimate expectations that it will not be taken from them through technical court orders.
The ordinary Nigerians, owners of LP now look up to the judges again with honour, respect and hope that they will consider all grounds of the new appeal awaiting ruling holistically: the Lifu order; the doctrine of necessity; how April 4, 2025 Supreme Court ruling was misapplied and the helpless situation of real LP proprietors now at the mercy of powerful late comer elites.
The issue at stake is not about Abure or Nenadi but the constitution. The court should set aside orders that overreach; and reaffirm jurisdictional limits. Most importantly, reaffirm that by not openly declaring the national chairman’s seat vacant on April 4, 2025 the Supreme Court intended the status quo ante to remain until the party’s internal organs, procedures and processes are reorganised to decide otherwise.
Esomonu writes from Abuja
