The Court of Appeal in Abuja has overturned key portions of a Federal High Court judgment that recognised a factional caretaker committee within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), ruling that the lower court granted reliefs that were never requested by any party involved in the case.
In a unanimous decision delivered by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam, the appellate court held that the Federal High Court in Ibadan exceeded its jurisdiction when it recognised the caretaker committee led by Abdurahman Mohammed and Samuel Anyanwu as the legitimate leadership faction of the opposition party.
The certified true copy of the judgment, obtained on Friday, revealed that the appellate court found significant legal flaws in the earlier ruling delivered by Justice Uche Agomoh on January 30, 2026.
According to the Court of Appeal, the trial court ventured beyond the matters presented for determination by the litigants.
Justice Onyemenam stated that none of the parties who appeared before the Federal High Court sought a declaration recognising any factional caretaker committee, making the relief granted by the lower court legally unsustainable.
“In the instant case, there is clearly a live issue where the trial court went outside the reliefs sought to recognise and uphold a factional caretaker committee,” the appellate judge held.
The court stressed that judges are expected to confine their decisions strictly to issues and reliefs placed before them by the parties.
The Court of Appeal further ruled that the legal foundation upon which the Federal High Court based its recognition of the caretaker committee had already been destroyed by an earlier Supreme Court judgment.
According to the appellate court, the Supreme Court had nullified the PDP’s Ibadan National Convention held between November 15 and 16, 2025, effectively rendering all structures and organs that emerged from the convention legally void.
The court held that any committee, leadership arrangement or party organ established through the convention could not continue to exist after the apex court declared the gathering invalid.
Once the convention itself has been pronounced null, void and of no effect by the Supreme Court, any superstructure erected upon it is necessarily without legal foundation,” the judgment stated.
The appellate court noted that under different circumstances it might have considered ordering a retrial of issues relating to the PDP leadership dispute.
However, it concluded that such a move would serve no legal purpose because the substantive matters had already been conclusively determined by higher courts.
Justice Onyemenam warned that directing a lower court to revisit issues already settled by the Supreme Court would amount to inviting the court to sit in judgment over decisions of the nation’s highest judicial authority.
Part of the judgment read:
This Court would be driven to the conclusion that the offending portions of the judgment, and indeed the judgment as a whole insofar as the excess permeates the decision, are a nullity and liable to be set aside.
The court added that ordering a retrial would either result in a repetition of issues already decided or create a situation where a lower court attempts to challenge the authority of the Supreme Court, both of which are prohibited under Nigerian law.
The appellate court also held that there was no longer any live controversy between the parties because the central legal issues had already been resolved through binding judgments delivered by both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
The ruling was unanimously endorsed by the other members of the three-man panel, Justices Mohammed Mustapha and Okon Abang.
The judgment effectively wipes out the legal basis upon which the Federal High Court recognised the caretaker committee associated with the Abdurahman Mohammed faction.
The decision represents another significant chapter in the prolonged leadership battle that has continued to divide the PDP ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Political observers believe the latest appellate court ruling could reshape the balance of power within the party as rival factions continue their struggle for control of the PDP’s national structure.
With the Court of Appeal now firmly aligning its position with the Supreme Court’s earlier verdict, the legal path supporting the disputed caretaker committee appears to have been completely extinguished, leaving the party once again searching for a lasting solution to its leadership crisis.
