2027: Court Gives INEC 72hrs to Register, Grant Access Code to ADA

The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to register the All Democratic Alliance (ADA) as a political party.

The court, in a judgment delivered by Justice Peter Lifu, equally ordered the electoral body to release its access code to the Akin Ricketts-led leadership of the association within 72 hours.

It will be recalled that INEC had, in October 2025, revealed that ADA was among 14 pre-qualified associations that applied to be registered as political parties, having completed the upload of all required information and documentation.

Though the commission okayed the association and seven others for the next stage of the registration process, ADA approached the court alleging that its access code was wrongly released to one Umar Ardo, who is neither its Pro-tem National Chairman nor its Secretary.

It urged the court to compel INEC to issue to the plaintiff the access code to enable the association to upload the necessary information and documents for the registration of ADA as a political party.

The association also prayed the court to declare that INEC was in violation of the extant laws when it issued the access code to the second defendant, Ardo.

More so, the plaintiff urged the court to declare that the information uploaded onto INEC’s portal by the wrong person — Ardo — on behalf of ADA was in violation of the extant laws, as it was at variance with the information in the plaintiff’s letter of intent, and should therefore be declared illegal, unlawful, null and void and of no effect. DL/and Vanguard