PDP's Effort to Cancel Kwara Local Government Elections Fails

The Peoples Democratic Party's effort to cancel the recent local government elections in Kwara State faced a setback on Tuesday. The Federal High Court in Abuja dismissed the party's case against the elections.

Justice Peter Lifu dismissed the case after noting that the PDP had already taken part in the elections. The party had challenged the results through election petitions and did not appeal the decisions before returning to the Federal High Court with a new case.

The judge stated that the new relief sought by the PDP could not be addressed through the suit. He explained that the case had shifted from a pre-election matter to a post-election challenge.

"The amendment fundamentally altered the character of the action," Justice Lifu said.

The case, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1061/2024, was filed against the Independent National Electoral Commission and the Kwara State Independent Electoral Commission. The PDP initially aimed to stop KWASIEC from conducting the council elections and to prevent INEC from giving the voters' register to the state electoral body.

Despite the ongoing court case, the elections took place as scheduled. This followed an earlier court order to maintain the status quo. Instead of staying out of the elections, the PDP took part and later filed about 24 petitions against the results.

The court found that all the petitions were dismissed. The PDP did not appeal any of these decisions. After those petitions failed, the party tried to change its case in the Federal High Court, asking the court to nullify the elections.

Justice Lifu turned down this request. He ruled that the Federal High Court could not take on the role of an election tribunal just by amending an existing suit.

"The court lacked jurisdiction to start as an election tribunal," the judge stated.

The court also noted that the timing of the amended claim posed another legal problem. It stated that the claim had become statute-barred.

"Having been so reconstituted, the suit was caught by the statutory limitation period," Justice Lifu explained.

The judge agreed with the initial objection from the defendants. He said the PDP's ongoing pursuit of the matter was an abuse of court process.

The court pointed out that the party had already chosen to follow the electoral petition route after joining the council elections. It could not later seek a similar outcome through a different process.

"The plaintiff voluntarily participated in the said elections, presented election petitions, and failed in all of them," the court held.

Justice Lifu added that the party could not use an amended originating summons to seek remedies that were no longer available after the election petitions were concluded.

"It was impermissible for the plaintiff to return, by way of an amended originating summons, to seek reliefs which it could no longer obtain through the election petition process.

"Such conduct amounted to an attempt to re-litigate, by a different route, matters that ought to have been ventilated exclusively before the appropriate election tribunals," Justice Lifu concluded.

The Federal High Court then dismissed the PDP's suit, making its attempt to cancel the Kwara council elections unsuccessful.