The Federal High Court in Abuja has dismissed the suit filed by Engr. Sesugh Kaaba and other aggrieved APC members against the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over the 2026 APC primary elections in Benue State.
Justice Inyang E. Ekwo dismissed the case on a preliminary legal ground of locus standi, meaning the legal right or standing to institute a particular action. According to the judgment, Engr. Kaaba did not participate in the particular APC primary election that was the subject of the suit. The court therefore held that he lacked the necessary legal standing to bring the action, especially in a representative capacity on behalf of other members.
The suit had challenged alleged substitutions involving several APC candidates, including Hon. Becky Orpin (Gboko East III State Constituency), Hon. Barr. Godwin Buluku (Gwer East State Constituency), Hon. Arc. Asema Achado (Gwer/Gwer-West Federal Constituency), Sen. Emmanuel Memga Udende (Benue North-East Senatorial District) and Sen. Dr. Titus Tertenger Zam (Benue North-West Senatorial District).
The plaintiffs had asked the court to compel the APC to recognise and forward to INEC the names of candidates they maintained had legitimately emerged from the party’s primaries. However, the court did not determine whether the alleged substitutions were lawful or unlawful. In other words, the judgment did not amount to a declaration that the APC’s alleged substitutions were valid. Rather, the court found that the case could not proceed because of the plaintiff’s lack of legal standing to institute it in the manner presented.
The immediate effect is that the reliefs sought by Kaaba and the other plaintiffs in that particular suit were not granted. The substantive question of whether candidates who emerged from the APC primaries were lawfully replaced or substituted before their names were submitted to INEC was therefore not determined by the court in this judgment. The case effectively ended at the procedural threshold of locus standi, before the court could examine the merits of the alleged candidate substitutions.
