"Judicial Rascality": ZLP's Nwanyanwu, IPAC Chair Slam Justice Lifu’s Deregistration Order After Appeal Court Salvages 5 Political Parties
The Court of Appeal in Abuja has dramatically halted the execution of a controversial Federal High Court judgment that ordered the immediate deregistration of five prominent political parties.
In a scathing rebuke, the appellate court labeled the actions of the trial judge, Justice Peter Lifu, as "the highest form of judicial impertinence" and accused him of "judicial rascality" for brazenly disregarding a pre-existing stay of proceedings.
Appearing live on Channels Television's Politics Today, the National Chairman and presidential candidate of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), Chief Dan Nwanyanwu, alongside the Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Yusuf Dantalle, expressed deep outrage over the initial ruling, describing it as an engineered political hit job.
The legal crisis threatened to instantly dismantle the ZLP, the African Democratic Party (ADC), the Action People’s Party (APP), the Action Alliance (AA), and the Accord Party (AP) right as they prepared for critical off-cycle governorship elections in states like Osun and Ekiti.
"Only INEC Holds the Constitutional Knife"
A visibly passionate Chief Dan Nwanyanwu, speaking both as a seasoned politician and a legal practitioner, stated that Justice Lifu intentionally ignored clear material evidence showing that the affected parties easily cleared the constitutional thresholds required to exist. Under Section 225A of the Nigerian Constitution, a political party must win at least one counselorship seat to maintain its status—a metric Nwanyanwu insists his party smashed.
"Law is based on facts and evidence. It's not based on persuasion. It's not based on somebody teleguiding you," Nwanyanwu argued. "ZLP won 50 local governments, 176 counselors across Abia, Nasarawa, and Rivers before they took Rivers. Lifu did not look at the evidence. He was just pushing an agenda.
Assuming without conceding that all these five parties did not file anything before the court... INEC is the only body given the constitutional right by our constitution to register and deregister political parties. INEC came to court and said, 'No, we have records that all these five parties are qualified.' So why should a judge decide otherwise?"
Nwanyanwu praised the upper court justices for restoring sanity, adding that higher courts must demand absolute adherence to stare decisis (the legal principle of following precedent set by higher courts) to protect the integrity of the bench.
A Coordinated Attempt at Exclusion?
Echoing Nwanyanwu's frustrations, IPAC Chairman Yusuf Dantalle revealed that the lawsuit was brought by a "faceless organization" claiming to represent former legislators—an association he notes was only registered in 2025, allegedly for the sole purpose of orchestrating this legal ambush.
He warned that using the judiciary to illegally "clean up" the ballot papers disenfranchises millions of voters right before an election cycle.
"The regulatory body is in court. INEC said these parties meet the standard to remain as political parties. So what is the interest of the people coming to say they should deregister them?" Dantalle asked. "We have gone to Benin Republic to enthrone democracy, but here we are busy trying to see that we disenfranchise and exclude our own people from the system."
Dantalle concluded by highlighting the structural disadvantages minority parties face in Nigeria, noting that the ruling APC's control of immense state resources makes it easy for them to run smooth nationwide programs while alternative voices are starved of subventions and choked by unstable leadership battles engineered through corrupt legal elements.
Both leaders agreed that while the Court of Appeal's ruling represents a massive win for multi-party democracy, the fight against malicious political litigations is far from over.
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