The Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday ordered accelerated hearing in a suit filed by the Sen. Adolphus Wabara-led Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Kabir Turaki faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), over the recognition of the faction as the authentic leadership of the party.
Justice Salim Ibrahim gave the order after counsel to the plaintiffs, Chief Gordy Uche, SAN, informed the court that the suit is time bound based on INEC’s revised timetable and schedule of activities for the 2027 general elections, which gave middle of July, 2026 as ultimatum for submission of names of candidates of political parties.
The News Agency of Nigeria) NAN) reports that members of the Wabara-led BoT and the PDP had filed the fresh suit seeking an order of the court compelling INEC to recognise the Turaki-led interim National Working Committee (NWC) of the party in its official website.
The Wike-led faction however did not sit by as they, through their counsel, Adedayo Adedeji SAN, and Ademola Abimbola SAN, sought not only to displace Chief Uche as counsel for the PDP, but also to get the party’s name expunged from the suit.
Adedeji had file a motion to substitute Chief Uche with his name, stressing that he was the authentic counsel hired by the PDP to represent it since Wabara is not known as the leader of PDP and so has no locus to hire any lawyer to handle matters for it.
He also filed another motion for the party’s name to be struck out of the suit.
However, Chief Uche contested the motion, praying the court to give him up to next week Monday, to file his reply to the motion and a written address.
“My Lord, this is something we had done in the recent past, so the materials to file are in my system. I only need that because the INEC had set mid-July as its final date for submission of names of candidates, I apply for abridgment of time for counsels to file and exchange all their processes.
Although Adedeji and Abimbola had accepted the timelines but argued against abridgment of time, Justice Ibrahim relied on the rules of court snd abridged time for the counsel to fine and exchange their pleadings latest by next week Friday so that the preliminary issues will be adopted on Tuesday, the 30th of June, next adjourned date.
