Recently, on June 26, Justice Isah Dashen of the Federal High Court, Lokoja, caused a huge judicio-political stir when he set aside his December 10, 2025 judgement ordering the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to register the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, as a political party. The ruling effectively deregisters the party. Having thoroughly read the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgement, I can only conclude that the judge’s action amounted to judicial recklessness and vandalism which risk truncating Nigeria’s fragile democracy.
If that sounds hyperbolic, then consider the wider implication of Justice Dashen’s ruling. The judge ordered that NDC’s substantive suit, which gave rise to the December 2025 ruling in its favour, “shall revert to the stage it occupied immediately before the delivery of the judgement set aside herein”. In other words, based on the extant ruling, there’s currently no court order on INEC to recognise NDC as a
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