"The Court Robbed Itself of Jurisdiction": Liborous Oshoma Criticizes High Court's Reversal on NDC Registration Status
Appearing as a guest analyst on Channels Television, prominent legal practitioner Liborous Oshoma picked holes in the recent Kogi State High Court decision to set aside its own earlier judgment mandating the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to register the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC).
Oshoma declared the new ruling legally problematic, arguing that the court acted outside its powers and ignored established legal principles, making the sudden reversal immaterial at the higher judicial levels.
Oshoma emphasized that once a court delivers a final judgment on an originating summons, it becomes functus officio—meaning it lacks the power to reopen, review, or reverse its own decision except to correct minor clerical errors. He noted that the pretext for the reversal—a logo identity conflict introduced by a third-party group, the Peace Movement Party (PMP)—was already thoroughly argued by INEC and considered by the judge before the original judgment was delivered in December 2025.
The Legal Breakdown: Why the Reversal Fails the Integrity Test
Oshoma systematically dismantled the ruling by matching the facts of the case against the strict criteria under which a Nigerian court can lawfully set aside its own judgment. He concluded that none of the mandatory legal triggers were present to justify the judge's sudden policy change.
Jurisprudence & Public Policy: Protecting the Electorate
A key argument raised by Oshoma centered on Public Policy, a legal doctrine stating that courts must consider the real-world chaos and financial damage their rulings inflict on the general public. He argued that the court completely ignored the thousands of citizens who altered their positions based on the initial legal order.
"A decision by a court on an issue which that court cannot revisit, reopen, or reconsider is a final decision on that issue... The easiest thing to do—even Corporate Affairs Commission does it—if your logo is similar, you say change the logo. But because of politics, people want to throw spanners in the works and make a mountain out of a non-existent molehill." — Liborous Oshoma
Political Commercialization: The Roots of the Crisis
Oshoma concluded his analysis by looking at the broader, systemic degradation of the Nigerian political system. He lamented that political parties are no longer treated as ideological institutions, but rather as transactional commodities used purely to secure ballots.
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