Court of Appeal in Abuja has overturned parts of a Federal High Court judgment that recognised a factional caretaker committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), ruling that the lower court granted reliefs that were not requested by any of the parties involved in the case.
In a judgment delivered by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam, the appellate court faulted Justice Uche Agomoh of the Federal High Court, Ibadan, for exceeding the issues presented before the court in the PDP leadership dispute.
Justice Agomoh had earlier recognised the caretaker committee led by Abdurahman Mohammed and Samuel Anyanwu as the legitimate leadership faction of the party in a judgment delivered on January 30. However, the Court of Appeal held that none of the parties sought such a declaration.
Justice Onyemenam stated that the trial court went beyond the reliefs sought when it recognised and upheld the factional caretaker committee.
The appellate court further ruled that the legal basis for the Federal High Court’s decision had already been invalidated by a Supreme Court judgment that nullified the PDP’s Ibadan Convention held on November 15 and 16, 2025.
According to the court, any leadership structure, committee, or organ created or validated by that convention could not stand after the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The judgment stated that once the convention had been declared null and void by the Supreme Court, any structure established from it lacked legal foundation.
The court noted that it might have considered ordering a retrial on issues arising from the convention if not for the Supreme Court’s intervention. However, it held that doing so would serve no legal purpose because the substantive issues had already been conclusively determined.
Part of the judgment stated that the offending portions of the lower court’s decision, and indeed the judgment itself where the excesses affected it, were nullities and liable to be set aside.
The court also held that directing the trial court to retry matters already settled by the Supreme Court would amount to asking it to revisit issues conclusively determined by the apex court, which the law does not permit.
Justice Onyemenam further ruled that there was no longer any live dispute between the parties because the core issues had already been resolved by binding decisions of both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
The judgment was unanimously supported by Justices Mohammed Mustapha and Okon Abang.
