A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has struck out a legal challenge by the Labour Party seeking to participate in the February 21 Area Council elections in the Federal Capital Territory, ruling that the suit was filed outside the constitutionally prescribed timeframe.
Justice Peter Lifu, in his judgment delivered on Wednesday, dismissed the case marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2110/2025 on grounds of being statute-barred and for lack of jurisdiction, effectively shutting the door on the party’s attempts to field candidates in the upcoming local government polls.
The Labour Party and its nominated candidates had approached the court seeking to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission to accept and publish their list of candidates for the FCT election. The party claimed it had been unlawfully excluded from INEC’s final list of candidates published in September 2025, with both the names of its nominees and the party’s logo omitted from the manifest of participating political parties.
In its originating suit, the Labour Party told the court that it had written to the INEC Chairman on September 8, 2025, to formally complain about the exclusion. According to the party, a follow-up letter dated October 2, 2025, addressing the same grievance was also ignored by the electoral body. The plaintiffs argued that without judicial intervention, they would be unjustly denied the right to contest the FCT Council polls.
However, Justice Lifu noted a critical procedural flaw in the party’s case. The court observed that while the suit was filed on October 7, 2025, the cause of action—the exclusion of Labour Party candidates by INEC—actually occurred on October 22, 2025. This discrepancy became central to the judgment.
Relying on Section 285, Paragraph 14(c) of the 1999 Constitution as amended, Justice Lifu emphasised that pre-election matters must be filed within 14 days from the date the cause of action arises. The judge found that the Labour Party’s suit did not comply with this constitutional requirement, rendering the case statute-barred and depriving the court of jurisdiction to hear the matter.
“The case of the plaintiff, under the 1999 Constitution, fell under pre-election litigation,” Justice Lifu stated in his judgment. He noted that none of the parties disputed the timeline of events, which made it clear that the constitutional window for filing had lapsed.
Beyond the issue of timing, Justice Lifu also highlighted concerns about forum shopping. He noted that his attention had been drawn to a similar case pending before a High Court in Nasarawa State involving the same parties and substantially the same subject matter. The existence of parallel suits, the judge said, created the impression that the plaintiffs were engaged in forum shopping—a practice frowned upon in legal proceedings where litigants file similar cases in multiple courts in hopes of obtaining a favourable judgment.
Based on these findings, Justice Lifu dismissed the suit in its entirety and declined to grant any of the reliefs sought by the Labour Party against INEC.
The exclusion of the Labour Party from the FCT Area Council elections is rooted in the party’s ongoing and highly publicised leadership crisis. For months, the party has been embroiled in a bitter internal dispute over its national leadership, with two factions claiming legitimacy and submitting separate lists of candidates to INEC.
The factional war has seen parallel national conventions, court battles, and conflicting claims to the party’s structures. INEC, caught in the middle of the dispute, has repeatedly expressed reluctance to recognise candidates submitted by either faction until the leadership question is conclusively resolved by the courts.
This internal turmoil has had direct consequences on the party’s electoral fortunes. In several states, the Labour Party has been excluded from participating in elections due to the confusion over who holds legitimate authority to submit candidates. The FCT case is the latest in a series of legal defeats linked to the unresolved leadership tussle.
The matter of pre-election disputes in Nigeria is governed by strict constitutional timelines designed to ensure that electoral matters are resolved expeditiously before elections take place. Section 285 of the 1999 Constitution vests the Federal High Court, state High Courts, and the National Industrial Court with jurisdiction over pre-election matters, but only if such cases are filed within 14 days of the occurrence of the act being challenged.
This provision has been interpreted and applied in numerous judicial decisions, with courts consistently holding that failure to meet the 14-day threshold renders a suit incompetent, regardless of its merit. The rationale is to prevent litigation from disrupting the electoral calendar and to provide certainty to all stakeholders, including candidates, political parties, and electoral bodies.
The principle of forum shopping, which Justice Lifu also cited, is another procedural safeguard. Nigerian courts have long held that litigants must not file similar suits in different courts simultaneously, as doing so undermines judicial integrity and wastes court resources. Where forum shopping is established, courts are empowered to strike out the suit or stay proceedings pending the outcome of the earlier-filed case.
The judgment is a significant legal blow to the Labour Party, which has struggled to maintain cohesion and electoral relevance since its surprising third-place finish in the 2023 presidential election. The party, which rode a wave of youth support and social media mobilisation during the last general elections, has since been weakened by internal squabbles and organisational disarray.
Without candidates on the ballot in the FCT Area Council elections, the party loses an important opportunity to consolidate its grassroots presence in the nation’s capital and to demonstrate organisational capacity ahead of future electoral contests.
