Court of Appeal voids recognition of Abdurahman Mohammed-Led PDP caretaker committee

The Court of Appeal in Abuja has set aside key portions of a Federal High Court judgment that recognised a factional caretaker committee in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), ruling that the lower court granted reliefs that were never sought by any of the parties involved in the suit.

In a judgment delivered by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam on Wednesday, the appellate court faulted the decision of Justice Uche Agomoh of the Federal High Court, Ibadan, for exceeding the issues placed before the court in the ongoing PDP leadership dispute.

Justice Agomoh had, on January 30, recognised the caretaker committee led by Abdurahman Mohammed and Senator Samuel Anyanwu as the legitimate leadership faction of the opposition party.

However, the Court of Appeal held that none of the litigants had requested such a declaration, making the trial court’s decision legally defective.

“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,” Justice Onyemenam stated.

The appellate court further ruled that the legal basis upon which the Federal High Court relied had already been invalidated by a Supreme Court judgment that nullified the PDP’s Ibadan Convention held on November 15 and 16, 2025.

According to the court, any leadership structure, committee, or organ established or validated through the convention automatically lost legal standing following the apex court’s decision.

“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 judgment held.

The court noted that it could have considered ordering a retrial on issues arising from the convention but concluded that such a move would serve no legal purpose since the substantive issues had already been settled by higher courts.

Part of the judgment read: “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.”

It added that directing the lower court to rehear issues already resolved by the Supreme Court would amount to inviting it to sit in judgment over the apex court, an action not permitted under the law.

The Court of Appeal also held that there was no longer any live dispute requiring adjudication, as the central issues underlying the appeal had already been conclusively determined by both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

The judgment was unanimously endorsed by the other members of the three-man panel, Justices Mohammed Mustapha and Okon Abang.

The ruling effectively nullifies the legal basis upon which the Federal High Court recognised the caretaker committee linked to the Abdurahman Mohammed faction, marking another significant development in the prolonged PDP leadership crisis.

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