The Federal High Court in Abuja has struck out the suit filed by former minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, against the declaration of former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, as the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for the presidential election of the year 2027.
Justice Joyce Abdulmalik delivered her judgment in the suit which was formally discontinued by the applicant’s lawyer on Friday, July 17, 2026, after an agreement was reached between the two persons over their dispute.
This followed after Atiku declared Amaechi as his running mate in the general election.
The suit is FHC/ABJ/CS/1215/2026 and Atiku, ADC and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were listed as respondents.
Amaechi, who came second in the party’s primary elections conducted on May 25, 2026, having secured more than 504,000 votes, while Atiku secured 1.8 million, was seeking for annulment of the primaries and prayed the court not to allow INEC to accept Atiku as presidential candidate of the party.
In his initial submission to court, Amaechi claimed that the primary had breached the stipulated rules of the Electoral Act, 2026 and the constitution of the political party.
According to him, the political party failed to use an official membership register, which is required for voter accreditation since a political party should be able to present their membership list to the Independent National Electoral Commission at least three weeks to the primary election.
Moreover, he went on to state that the official declaration forms provided by the party were not signed and endorsed by the members of the election committee and the polling agents that he nominated.
It is important to point out that the reason for filing the lawsuit by Amaechi was that he had written many letters of complaint to the ADC Presidential Appeal Committee and the National Chairman of the Party, former Senate President David Mark but received no satisfactory response from them.
Lastly, the breach was fixed when the party leaders gave a press statement that they had reached a consensus on putting Amaechi on the joint ticket.
During the Friday proceedings, Amaechi’s counsel, Jibrin Okutepa, SAN, told the bench that all outstanding issues had been sorted out outside court, leading to the withdrawal of the suit.
The suit was therefore ruled out by Justice Abdulmalik as desired, creating a legal avenue for the Atiku-Amaechi ADC presidential ticket.
