A Federal High Court in Abuja has struck out a suit filed by Senator Ned Munir Nwoko seeking to nullify the emergence of former Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for the Delta North Senatorial District in the next general election.
According to a report by The Nation, the suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1062/2026, was initially instituted in Nwoko’s name but filed through a person identified as his lawful attorney, Dr. Mike Nwoko. The senator later sought to amend the originating processes to reflect that he had personally commenced the pre-election suit, a move opposed by the defendants.
The APC, Okowa and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were listed as defendants in the case.
Delivering judgment on Monday, Justice Mohammed Umar upheld the objections raised by the defendants’ lawyers, including Kehinde Ogunwumiju (SAN), who argued that the suit was fundamentally defective from the outset and could not be cured through an amendment.
The judge held that the originating summons clearly showed the action was filed in a representative capacity through an attorney rather than by the aspirant himself.
Justice Umar relied on Section 285(14) of the Constitution and Section 88(2) of the Electoral Act 2026, which specify that only an aspirant who participated in the relevant party primary has the legal standing to institute a pre-election suit.
He ruled that the right to challenge the outcome or conduct of a party primary is a personal statutory right that cannot be delegated or exercised through an attorney or representative.
According to the court, neither the Constitution nor the Electoral Act provides for an aspirant to commence a pre-election action through an agent, adding that if such an arrangement had been intended, the law would have expressly stated so.
Justice Umar further held that Nwoko’s application to amend the suit could not succeed because an amendment cannot revive a suit that was incompetent from the moment it was filed.
He explained that a court can only permit amendments where there is a valid and subsisting action before it, noting that a defective originating process cannot be retrospectively validated through amendment.
The court subsequently dismissed Nwoko’s application to amend the originating summons and struck out the substantive suit for want of jurisdiction after finding the action to be incompetent.
