The Federal High Court in Abuja has scheduled Friday to deliver judgment in a suit filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seeking to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to publish Oladipupo Adebutu’s name as its candidate for the 2027 Ogun State governorship election.
Justice Peter Lifu fixed the judgment date after parties presented their witnesses and adopted their respective court processes in the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2573/2026.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the PDP and Adebutu instituted the suit on October 22 following the exclusion of his name from the list of candidates contesting the governorship election in Ogun State.
The plaintiffs listed INEC as the sole defendant in the case filed through their counsel, Ahmed Raji, SAN.
They presented six questions for the court to determine and requested 11 reliefs.
Among their demands was an order nullifying INEC’s decision to exclude, remove or refuse to publish Adebutu’s name in the final list of candidates released on October 10, arguing that the action denied him a fair hearing and violated Sections 29 and 32 of the Electoral Act, 2026.
They also asked the court to direct INEC to, within 24 hours of its order, include and publish “the name of the 2nd plaintiff as the 1st plaintiff’s governorship candidate for Ogun State in the forthcoming 2027 General Election,” among other reliefs.
In its counter-affidavit, deposed to by Mustapha Mohammed, a Chief Programme Analyst in INEC’s Information and Communication Technology Department, the commission maintained that Adebutu’s name was missing from the register of party members previously submitted by the PDP.
INEC told the court that only the name of the party’s deputy governorship candidate in the state, Kolapo Lateefat Oyeyemi, appeared in the register.
At the previous hearing on November 5, both parties presented witnesses to support their respective positions.
Testifying for the plaintiffs, PDP National Organising Secretary, Umar Bature, told the court that Adebutu’s name was included in the flash drive containing the list of the party’s candidates submitted to INEC.
Led in evidence by Raji, Bature also disputed the colour of the flash drive presented by INEC before the court, insisting that the device submitted by the PDP was silver.
He explained that the party submitted only a soft copy of its candidates’ list through a flash drive to the electoral commission, in accordance with the Electoral Act and Paragraph 4(3) of Part 1 of INEC’s Regulations and Guidelines for Political Parties, 2026.
However, Mohammed, who testified for INEC, maintained that Adebutu’s name was not among the candidates submitted by the PDP.
He further told the court that the party submitted both hard and soft copies of its candidates’ list to the commission.
After hearing arguments and evidence from both sides, Justice Lifu fixed November 13 for judgment.