Once upon a time in this republic, Chief Dorothy Mato, Pendatyo-u-Tiv, approached the Federal High Court (FHC) sitting in Makurdi, praying, in substance, that the court declare that she had been robbed of the 2015 All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket for the Vandeikya/Konshisha Federal Constituency by the APC and Rep. Herman Hembe, and order that the ticket be restored to her.
At the time, as it is today, pre-election matters could run their full course to the Supreme Court. The difference was that, unlike today, there was no specific timeframe within which such matters had to be heard and determined.
What was the cause of action?
The headquarters of the Vandeikya/Konshisha Federal Constituency is Vandeikya. For reasons best known to the APC, the party shifted the goalposts while its primary election process was already underway in Vandeikya and purportedly moved the federal constituency headquarters to Makurdi. Rep. Hembe, the then incumbent, was declared the winner, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) subsequently returned him as the winner of the general election.
The Pendatyo-u-Tiv rejected the result. The matter dragged on and eventually reached the Supreme Court.
Rep. Hembe was sacked. He was sacked more than two years after the disputed primary and election proper, having sat on what Mrs Mato regarded as a “stolen mandate,” allegedly in active connivance with the APC in Benue State. The case, initiated in 2015, was eventually resolved in 2017.
In its decision, the Supreme Court did not order a fresh election. The apex court ordered Rep. Hembe out and Mrs. Mato in.
Whether or not the alleged arbitrary movement of the headquarters of the Vandeikya/Konshisha Federal Constituency formed part of the facts upon which the case was ultimately decided, the underlying issue remains this: It was a pre-election matter; what some people today casually describe as “party affairs.”
The August 5, 2026 judgment of the Federal High Court affirming Abdulghani Arobo as the APC candidate for the Owo/Ose Federal Constituency in Ondo State also refers.
Meanwhile, the courts have consistently maintained that victory in an election, where votes are cast, is determined by the highest number of votes obtained by a candidate. Where a winner cannot be declared because of a tie or other circumstances arising from the votes recorded, a fresh election may be ordered, either partly or wholly, as provided by law.
One cannot win an election merely on account of what happens outside the polling unit, voting unit or ward headquarters in relation to a direct primary, where the votes for the primary are cast. Once voting has taken place, the question of whether the process should be voided ultimately becomes a matter for the courts, where properly challenged.
Legal practitioner, Terfa Jirgba, Esq., argues that neither the National Executive Council nor any national leader of a political party possesses the power to arbitrarily invalidate, alter or modify the result of a valid primary election.
“The power to determine the validity of an election ultimately rests with the courts, particularly where an aspirant can demonstrate substantial violations of the law or the party’s constitution,” Mr. Jirgba once told TNT.
He argued that where accreditation, voting, and collation have taken place, and INEC has monitored the exercise, changing the result subsequently becomes legally difficult.
Today, before the FHC, are Sen. Gabriel Suswam, Prof. Kohol Iornem, Mr. Benjamin Abee, Mr. Gideon Nyon, Engr. Terhemba Nongo, Engr. Sesugh Kaaba and others—much like Mrs. Mato was in 2015. They are challenging what they describe as attempts to substitute their names with those of their opponents as APC candidates for the 2027 National Assembly and State Constituencies elections.
They were returned as winners after APC primary elections conducted by committees constituted by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party and supervised by INEC.
At the heart of their argument is a deceptively simple question: What happens to the outcome of a primary election once it has been conducted, results declared, and the process subjected to the party’s internal mechanisms?
Ironically, those who opposed the validity of the primary elections, and allegedly maintained that no primary took place, have themselves allegedly had their names forwarded to INEC as the APC’s candidates for the 2027 polls.
While others have held firmly to the argument that nomination is a “party affair” and that the decision of the party is supreme, Kamo Sende, a doctoral researcher at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, has raised a fundamental jurisprudential question.
According to Mr. Sende, if an aspirant publicly insists that no primary took place, did not participate, did not see electoral materials and did not vote, can that same person subsequently claim a ticket arising from the very process whose existence he denied?
And can a political party, consistent with the law, adopt a nomination procedure unknown to the Electoral Act?
Parties have joined issues, with the defendants allegedly arguing that they were nominated at a primaries conducted by the Austin Agada faction, even as the petitioners claimed they were returned winners after participating in a primary election conducted by APC NWC and supervised by INEC.
Already, hearings have been concluded in the suit instituted by Engr. Kaaba, who initiated a class action, as well as in Sen. Suswam’s case against Sen. Emmanuel Udende and the APC. Judgment in the two matters is fixed for October 8 and October 12, respectively, while the other cases remain pending.
For now, the courts have assumed jurisdiction to hear and determine the disputes. That, in itself, means the courts cannot simply sit back and fold their arms in the face of serious disputes over the law and the validity of political processes.
Let the courts decide.
