Leader of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, Seriake Dickson, has rejected the Federal High Court order directing the deregistration of the party, describing the ruling as illegal and vowing to challenge it through legal means.

Reacting to the judgment delivered on Friday by Justice Isah Dashen of the Federal High Court in Lokoja, Dickson said the court order lacked legal merit and was designed to undermine the credibility and progress of the NDC.

According to him, the ruling is a threat to Nigeria’s multi-party democracy and an attempt to shrink the country’s democratic space.

“All I can say is that the order lacks legal merit and is intended to affect the foundational credibility and efforts of our party. The order is illegal and will not stand.

“It is against multi-party democracy, anti-democratic in nature, and aimed at narrowing and stifling the democratic space. It will be resisted by all of us and by all lovers of democracy in Nigeria,” Dickson said.

He disclosed that the party had assembled a team of lawyers to take immediate steps to set aside the court order, urging members, supporters and candidates to remain calm and continue their political activities.

Dickson expressed confidence that the party would overcome the legal challenge, insisting that the ruling would not derail its preparations for future elections.

He also questioned the legal standing of the applicant, an association identified as the Peace Movement Party, arguing that it was neither a registered political party nor one of the associations that applied for registration with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in 2025.

According to him, the association had no interest in the subject matter of the suit and was not a necessary party in the case.

Dickson further alleged that unnamed individuals threatened by the rapid growth of the NDC were behind the court action, claiming the party’s progress within five months had unsettled its opponents.

He maintained that the party would pursue all available judicial remedies to overturn what he described as a judicial error and reaffirmed the NDC’s commitment to deepening multi-party democracy in Nigeria.

A frontline political analyst, Mahmud Jega, has advised President Bola Tinubu to come out openly to condemn the attitude of some judges towards opposition political parties and against Nigeria’s democracy.

Jega warned that Nigeria’s democracy is at risk if opposition parties are prevented from contesting the 2027 general elections.

He stated that the growing perception that there is a coordinated effort to weaken opposition parties ahead of next year’s election is becoming undeniable, adding that If this is allowed to happen, it could mark the beginning of the end of democracy in Nigeria. 

He said It was important for the President, as the head of the country’s most powerful institution, the Presidency, to distance himself from it and discourage anything that undermines democracy.

Speaking on Arise Television, Jega said, “After what happened in PDP, politically it [judgement against NDC] is very significant, because unfortunately it adds to the widespread and growing perception that there is a concerted effort orchestrated by someone to stop all the opposition parties from contesting next year’s election.

“After what happened in PDP, after what is happening in ADC now, it has come to NDC, not to mention Labour Party, NNPP, SDPC and a  small party like PRP, once it produced a presidential candidate, some people went to court, and the whole matter.

“So the perception is growing that there is a concerted effort to stop all the opposition parties from contesting next year’s election. Now, actually, that will be like the end of democracy in Nigeria if we don’t have an opposition party. 

“I don’t know who is orchestrating this but it is very important for the presidency, because it is the most powerful institution in the country, to distance itself and discourage what is happening.

“In 2001 when PDP was ruling, and the opposition ANPP at  that time was going to hold a convention here in Abuja, and the convention was on Saturday, and already thousands of people were there, they had been campaigning all over the place for party offices, and then on Friday afternoon, a judge of the Abuja High Court, issued an order stopping the convention, and they all had to scatter.

“A few days later, President Obasanjo had his monthly media chat, was asked about that, he said ‘it is wicked, it is wicked,’ he said it three times, that was very important.

“It sent a message, very important. And because of that, possibly the National Judicial Council took steps, and the judge was actually, either retired or sacked. It is very important for the presidency right now to do a similar thing.”

National Secretary, Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, Ikenna Enekweizu, has given a major reason, the court judgement against the party’s registration by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, would not stand.

DAILY POST reported that a Federal High Court judgment in Lokoja, Kogi State, on Friday set aside its earlier judgment directing the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to register the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, as a political party.

Speaking on Arise News, Enekweizu pointed out that the court had already established the fact that Peace Movement Party, PMP, does not exist and is not even among the political parties that applied to INEC for registration.

He said, “In fact, we’re not just registered. The original substantive judgment of the court was that we’re deemed to have been registered by INEC, deemed registered.

“But if you read the entirety of that judgment, a lot of consequential orders were made that made it made it look like we were actually registered by INEC from when we actually applied. 

“INEC had a duty to register us, refused for no justification to register us after we had met all the requirements for registration. That is what drove us to court, and the court held that we, when INEC, in course of hearing, admitted that the only reason for which we had refused to reach us, which was that our logo resembled that of APC, not Peace Movement Party. 

“The letter they wrote to us, and on the basis of which we went to court, stated that our logo resembled that of APC, All Progressives Congress, that is why we went to court, and that is why it was not necessary at the time we went to court, to join any other party other than the other than INEC.

“In fact, we’ve had any reason to have joined anybody at that stage, it will have been APC itself, because the reason for refusing to register us was that our logo resembled that of APC, not a non-existing PMP. 

“Now it was only when we got to court, after we had filed and served our originating summons, that INEC, in their response to originating summons, mentioned the name PMP, stating that our logo looked like that of PMP. It is a fundamental principle of law that you cannot,  reprobate and approbate.

“If it has given one reason for refusing to register NDC, and for which we have gone to court, the moment you abandoned that reason in the course of the trial and actually admitted before the court  that reason you gave originally did not actually exist, you had conceded to that judgment, and so we had no reason from the beginning to have joined PMP. 

“Now, basically, when they raised PMP as a reason, a new reason for which we were never told, our response was very simple: one, as at the time we went to court, there were 18 registered political parties, PMP was not one of them. Two, 171 political associations applied to be registered as political parties, PMP was not one of them.

“So there was no reason for you to use a non-existing PMP as a justification for not wanting to register us. In fact, during the hearing, a judge asked first, does INEC now admit that our logo does not look like that of APC? INEC said yes. Now is PMP a registered political party? INEC said no. Is PMP one of the 171 that applied for registration? INEC said no. 

“One would wonder if PMP was one of the registered political institutions during that registration process, in what way were the rights breached?”