The Federal High Court in Abuja has dismissed a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) suit seeking to stop the Kwara State Independent Electoral Commission (KWASIEC) from conducting the last local council elections in Kwara State, saying the case was statute-barred.

In the judgment delivered yesterday, the presiding Justice Peter Lifu also ruled that the suit was an abuse of court process.

The PDP was the plaintiff in the suit with No. FHC/ABJ/CS/1061/2024, while the defendants were the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and KWASIEC.

The plaintiff had sought an order restraining KWASIEC from conducting the last LG elections in Kwara State, and also restraining INEC from furnishing KWASIEC with the Voters’ Register for that purpose.

However, the council elections were conducted while the substantive suit was pending, as the court had earlier ordered that the status quo be maintained. Consequently, the plaintiff fully participated in the electoral process.

It thereafter filed about 24 election petitions, all of which were dismissed, but it did not appeal any of the decisions, instead applying to amend its originating summons to seek an order nullifying the said elections.

However, the court held that the amendment fundamentally altered the character of the action. It noted that the suit, which was originally a pre-election matter, was, by virtue of the amendment, transformed into a post-election claim, saying the court lacked jurisdiction to start as an election tribunal.

Among others, the court added that having been so reconstituted, the suit was caught by the statutory limitation period, and that it had no power as an electoral tribunal, and was equally statute-barred.

The court further upheld the defendants’ preliminary objection that the suit constituted an abuse of court process, as the plaintiff had voluntarily participated in the said elections, presented election petitions, and failed in all of them.

According to the court, it was impermissible for the plaintiff to return, by way of an amended originating summons, to seek reliefs which it could no longer obtain through the election petition process.

Such conduct, it stated, amounted to an attempt to re-litigate, by a different route, matters that ought to have been ventilated exclusively before the appropriate election tribunals. ( The Gaurdian)

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