By Wasila Yakubu
The Federal High Court in Abuja has directed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to restore Ladi Adebutu’s name to the list of candidates for the 2027 Ogun State governorship election within 24 hours, ruling that the electoral body acted outside its legal authority when it excluded him.
In a judgment delivered on Friday, Justice Peter Lifu held that INEC could not independently disqualify a candidate who had been duly nominated by a political party. He also found that the commission violated Adebutu’s right to fair hearing by removing his name without first giving him an opportunity to respond to the concerns surrounding his candidacy.
The judge described the exclusion as unlawful, unconstitutional and without legal effect. He maintained that once a political party submits a candidate’s name, any decision to disqualify that candidate must be made by a competent court, not by INEC acting on its own.
The ruling followed a legal challenge filed by Adebutu and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after the commission left his name out of the final list of candidates released on October 10, 2026.
Before addressing the main dispute, Justice Lifu rejected INEC’s preliminary objection against the suit. He ruled that the originating summons was properly filed and signed by a senior lawyer, with other members of the legal team identified in the court documents.
At the centre of the case was whether Adebutu had been validly nominated, whether INEC had the authority to remove his name and whether the commission followed due process before taking that decision.
Adebutu told the court that he had previously represented the PDP in the 2023 Ogun governorship election and also contested the state's governorship poll in 2019. He said he participated in the party's primary for the 2027 election and emerged as its candidate on May 24, 2026.
According to him, the PDP subsequently published his name on August 29 without any objection. He only discovered that INEC had excluded him when the commission released its final candidates' list in October.
The plaintiffs said the party's National Secretary and the PDP had written to INEC on October 14, requesting a reversal of the decision, but the commission did not act on their appeal.
The court also examined conflicting accounts over Adebutu’s membership of the PDP. The party’s National Organising Secretary, Umar Bature, who testified for the plaintiffs, confirmed that Adebutu was a registered member whose details were included in the membership register submitted to INEC.
Bature said the party forwarded a register containing more than 30,000 members to the commission through a flash drive on April 22, 2026. He further told the court that Adebutu registered with the party on February 24, 2026, and that his membership had never been disputed.
INEC presented Mustapha Mohammed, a programme analyst, who testified that a search conducted before the publication of the candidates' list did not show Adebutu's name in the PDP membership register. However, he said the name of the deputy governorship candidate appeared in the records.
Under cross-examination, Mohammed acknowledged that he was not the official who received the flash drive from the PDP and could not independently verify the precise contents of the device submitted by the party.
Justice Lifu held that INEC had not provided sufficient evidence to establish that Adebutu was absent from the membership register submitted by the PDP.
The judge also questioned why the commission failed to challenge the May 24 primary election within the period allowed by law, rather than raising the issue months later.
He observed that no legal action had been filed to challenge Adebutu’s emergence within 14 days of the primary, describing INEC’s delayed intervention as troubling.
Warning against granting the electoral commission powers outside the law, Justice Lifu said allowing such authority could create a situation in which a candidate might be disqualified just a day before an election.
He stressed that INEC had no independent power to remove a party’s nominated candidate from the list, adding that the responsibility for choosing candidates rests exclusively with political parties, subject to the law.
The judge further held that if the commission believed Adebutu was not qualified to contest, it should have approached a court with the necessary jurisdiction instead of taking unilateral action.
Consequently, the court ordered INEC to amend the candidates' list published on October 10, 2026, and include Adebutu’s name within 24 hours.
It also ruled that the commission could not lawfully declare the result of the 2027 Ogun governorship election without the participation of the plaintiffs, warning that any such exercise would be unconstitutional and without effect.
Wasila Yakubu
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