The Federal High Court in Abuja has fixed Friday to deliver judgment in a suit filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its Ogun State governorship candidate, Oladipupo Adebutu, against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The suit seeks an order compelling INEC to publish Adebutu’s name as the party’s candidate for the 2027 Ogun State governorship election.
Justice Peter Lifu fixed the judgment date after parties called their witnesses and adopted their final written addresses in the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2573/2026.
The PDP and Adebutu instituted the suit on October 22 following the omission of Adebutu’s name from INEC’s list of contestants for the governorship election.
The plaintiffs, through their lawyer, Ahmed Raji, SAN, asked the court to set aside INEC’s decision to omit, remove or refuse to publish Adebutu’s name in the final list of candidates released on October 10.
They argued that the commission’s action violated their right to a fair hearing and contravened Sections 29 and 32 of the Electoral Act, 2026.
Among other reliefs, they urged the court to compel INEC to publish Adebutu’s name as the PDP governorship candidate within 24 hours of its order.
However, INEC, in a counter-affidavit deposed to by Mustapha Mohammed, a Chief Programme Analyst in its Information and Communication Technology Department, maintained that Adebutu’s name was not in the register of party members submitted by the PDP.
The commission said it only found the name of the party’s deputy governorship candidate in Ogun State, Yemi Sowunmi-Kolapo, in the register.
At the last sitting on November 5, both parties presented witnesses to support their positions.
Testifying for the plaintiffs, the PDP National Organising Secretary, Umar Bature, told the court that Adebutu’s name was included in the flash drive containing the party’s list of candidates submitted to INEC.
Led in evidence by Raji, Bature also disputed the colour of the flash drive presented by INEC in court, insisting that the device submitted by the PDP was silver.
He said the party submitted only a soft copy of its candidates’ list through the flash drive, in compliance with the Electoral Act and Paragraph 4(3) of Part 1 of INEC’s Regulations and Guidelines for Political Parties, 2026.
However, Mohammed, who testified for INEC, maintained that Adebutu’s name was missing from the list submitted by the PDP.
The INEC official also told the court that the party submitted both hard and soft copies of its candidates’ list to the commission.
Meanwhile, the PDP has warned the All Progressives Congress (APC) against vote-buying, insisting that financial inducement would not suppress the will of voters in Ogun State.
The warning was issued on Thursday by the party’s deputy governorship candidate during a condolence visit to a bereaved supporter in Ijemo, Abeokuta.
Politics Nigeria reports that the visit reportedly turned into a campaign rally for the PDP governorship ticket of Adebutu and Kolapo.
“The politics of throwing money around will only drain the spender rather than suppress the will of Ogun State indigenes and residents,” she said.
Kolapo said the party’s ward-to-ward tour across Ogun State had shown that voters were increasingly rejecting financial inducement despite the economic hardship in the country.
She also claimed that the PDP had continued to receive thousands of defectors from the ruling APC, despite what she described as propaganda surrounding INEC’s exclusion of names.
“This shows nothing other than the fact that indigenes of the state will speak loudly with their votes in the coming polls,” she said.
