The Court of Appeal in Abuja has faulted Justice Uche Agomoh of the Federal High Court, Ibadan Division, for granting reliefs that were not sought by any of the parties in a legal dispute involving two factions of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
In a judgement delivered by a three-member panel comprising Justices Uchechukwu Onyemenam, Mohammed Mustapha, and Okon Efreti Abang of the Court of Appeal on Wednesday, June 3, the appellate court held that the trial judge went beyond the reliefs sought before the lower court when she recognised a factional caretaker committee in the PDP leadership crisis.
The appeal stemmed from a judgement delivered by Ms Agomoh on January 30, wherein she nullified a National Convention held by the Taminu Turaki-led faction of the PDP in Ibadan between November 15 and November 16, 2025.
While delivering her judgement in January, Ms Agomoh declared that the Caretaker Committee led by Mohammed Abdulrahman and Senator Samuel Anyanwu remained the only recognised National Working Committee (NWC) of the PDP pending the conduct of a valid national convention.
However, in a judgement read by Justice Onyemenam, the Court of Appeal said none of the parties in the suit had sought such a declaration.
“In the instant case, there is clearly a live issue where the trial court went outside the reliefs sought to recognise and uphold a factional caretaker committee,” Ms Onyemenam said.
The appellate court further noted that if the declaratory and injunctive reliefs sought on appeal had not been tied to the legitimacy of the Ibadan convention, which had already been nullified by the Supreme Court, it would have ordered a retrial on the leadership organs purportedly created or validated by the convention.
“Once the convention itself has been pronounced null, void and of no effect by the Supreme Court, any superstructure erected upon it is necessarily without legal foundation,” the Court of Appeal held.
The Court of Appeal further said the legal foundation of the Mr Anyanwu-led caretaker committee recognised by the trial court had been extinguished by the Supreme Court’s judgement. It added that revisiting the issue would serve no practical legal purpose.
The judgement reads: “This court would be driven to the conclusion that the offending portions of the judgment, and indeed the judgment as a whole insofar as the excess permeates the decision, are a nullity and liable to be set aside ex debito justitiae.
“A direction to the trial court to retry an issue that has been settled at the apex level would, in effect, invite it either to repeat what has already been decided or to purport to sit in judgment over the Supreme Court, both of which the law forbids.
“On the merits, I hold that, by reason of the binding decisions of this Court in Appeal No. CA/ABJ/1695/2025 and of the Supreme Court in Appeal No. SC/CV/164/2026, which nullified the Ibadan Convention of 15th–16th November 2025 and settled the core issues underlying this appeal, there is no longer any live controversy between the parties.”
The judgement was unanimously supported by Justices Mustapha and Abang, the two other members of the three-member panel.
The Court of Appeal’s decision effectively nullifies the basis upon which the Federal High Court, Ibadan Division, recognised the PDP faction led by Mr Mohammed and Anyanwu.