Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court in Abuja has declined to recuse himself from the suit challenging the legality of the Senator David Mark-led leadership of the African Democratic Congress.
The judge held on Tuesday that there was no cogent and verifiable reason for him to hands off the matter, despite applications by most of the defendants demanding his withdrawal from the case.
The decision came a day after Justice Lifu delivered a controversial judgment directing the Independent National Electoral Commission to deregister the ADC and four other political parties over alleged failure to meet constitutional requirements.
Following his refusal to withdraw from the matter, Justice Lifu fixed June 23 for accelerated hearing of the suit filed by a former National Deputy Chairman, North-East, of the ADC, Nafiu Bala Gombe.
Gombe is challenging the legality of the Senator Mark-led caretaker committee of the party.
Listed as defendants in the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1819/2025 are the ADC, INEC, Senator David Mark, former Osun State Governor Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, and former ADC National Chairman, Chief Ralph Nwosu.
The plaintiff is contending that following the resignation of Chief Nwosu as national chairman, he was qualified to assume the leadership of the party.
He is asking the court to nullify all actions taken on behalf of the ADC by the Senator Mark-led leadership.
Gombe is also seeking an order restraining Senator Mark and Aregbesola from parading themselves as National Chairman and National Secretary of the ADC, respectively, arguing that their emergence violated the party’s constitution and the Electoral Act.
Although only five defendants were initially listed in the suit, the National Welfare Secretary of the party, Nkemakolam Ukandu, applied to be joined as an interested party, contending that his rights could be affected by the outcome of the proceedings.
Ukandu also joined other defendants in asking Justice Lifu to return the case file to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court for reassignment.
He drew the court’s attention to the fact that the party had already petitioned both Justice Lifu and the Chief Judge before the National Judicial Council, and that both had also been sued over the handling of legal disputes involving the ADC.
However, Justice Lifu dismissed the recusal applications and imposed a fine of ₦500,000 each against Senator Mark and Aregbesola.
The plaintiff’s counsel, Robert Emukpero, SAN, had urged the court to dismiss the applications, describing them as lacking in merit and intended to delay the hearing of the substantive suit.
He argued that the defendants failed to provide any evidence showing that Justice Lifu had exhibited bias against them.
The matter had earlier been before Justice Emeka Nwite, who delayed hearing pending the outcome of an interlocutory appeal filed by Senator Mark at the Supreme Court challenging the jurisdiction of the court to entertain what he described as an internal political party dispute.
After the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal on April 30, Gombe wrote to the Chief Judge on May 4, requesting that the case be reassigned to another judge, saying he had lost confidence in Justice Nwite’s ability to determine the matter objectively.
The defendants opposed that request, accusing the plaintiff of attempting to frustrate the speedy hearing of the suit.
Justice Nwite later withdrew from the matter, after which it was reassigned to Justice Lifu.
With Justice Lifu now refusing to recuse himself, the suit challenging the David Mark-led ADC leadership is set to proceed on an accelerated basis.