The deregistration of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and four other political parties has hit a roadblock. The Court of Appeal has deferred the hearing of their appeals until July 14 after some parties failed to file their processes in time.

The ADC and the four other parties - the Action Peoples Party (APP), Action Alliance (AA), Accord Party (AP), and the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) - had been ordered to be deregistered by a Federal High Court led by Justice Peter Lifu. The court had found that the parties had failed to meet the constitutional requirements needed to warrant their continued existence and participation in future elections.

The deregistration was based on a suit filed by the National Forum of Former Legislators (NFFL), which argued that the parties had persistently failed to meet the electoral performance thresholds set out in Section 225A of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), as reinforced by the Electoral Act 2022 and INEC's regulations. The NFFL claimed that the ADC and the four other parties had failed to win seats across key tiers of government in both the 2023 general elections and the by-elections conducted by INEC.

Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, who is also a defendant in the matter, had thrown his weight behind the plaintiffs, arguing that the continued existence of the said political parties violates extant provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and ultimately undermines the nation's electoral integrity.

The defendants, including INEC and the parties, had urged the appellate court to set aside the Federal High Court's judgment.

However, on Tuesday, the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, on Tuesday, deferred the full-blown hearing of substantive appeals seeking to set aside the judgment until July 14. The adjournment followed the failure of some of the parties to file and exchange the necessary processes in time.

The Justice Abba Mohammed-led three-member panel shifted the scheduled hearing to enable all the parties to regularise their processes. The panel had, on June 25, okayed the hearing of the appeals after housekeeping proceedings that enabled the parties in the matter to identify some of the processes they had filed.

The panel had berated Justice Lifu of the Federal High Court in Abuja for disobeying an order it had made on May 22, which directed him to stay proceedings in the case pending the outcome of an appeal by the parties. The appellate court had held that Justice Lifu’s action was “a form of judicial impertinence,” stressing that the Supreme Court had previously held that a judge who acts in such a manner “is unfit for the bench, as the conduct amounts to judicial rascality.”