ABUJA, NIGERIA – The Supreme Court of Nigeria has delivered a sweeping judgment that completely upends the administrative structure of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). In a decisive ruling handed down on Friday, May 22, 2026, the apex court set aside a previous Court of Appeal judgment that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had used as its sole legal basis to recognize Alhaji Shehu Gabam as the authentic National Chairman of the party.
The apex court's ruling, delivered in the highly contested suit marked SC/CV/229/2026, effectively wipes away the entire legal architecture of the appellate division's decision, which had temporarily validated Gabam’s embattled leadership status. The Supreme Court held that the earlier judgment of the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, which the nation's electoral umpire relied upon for its official institutional recognition, cannot stand in the face of established statutory law. With this latest development, the legal ground upon which Gabam’s recognition as the SDP national leader rested has been nullified, a move that plunges the party back into a deep, unresolved leadership crisis.
This long-running internal dispute is deeply tied to an intense and prolonged factional struggle over the control of the national party organs, as well as the constitutional legality of critical executive party decisions. At the heart of the matter was the validity of the Ekiti State governorship primary election, a high-stakes intra-party contest that has repeatedly dragged the Social Democratic Party through multiple levels of the Nigerian judiciary over the past several months.
The journey to the Supreme Court began following a complex judicial sequence. Earlier in the year, the Court of Appeal, in its March 27, 2026 judgment in appeal CA/ABJ/CV/126/2026, had partially overturned an initial Federal High Court ruling. That trial court ruling had originally upheld the legitimacy of a rival leadership faction, specifically the National Working Committee (NWC) led by Dr. Sadiq Gombe.
The appellate challenge had been instituted by an aggrieved party member, Fayemi Babatunde, who fiercely disputed the legitimacy of the institutional party structure that conducted the controversial Ekiti State primary. Babatunde had systematically argued before the courts that the National Working Committee led by Sadiq Gombe was improperly constituted and fundamentally flawed. Consequently, he maintained that the faction lacked any recognizable legal authority to organize or supervise valid primary elections under both the internal SDP constitution and the provisions of the Electoral Act. He further sought a mandatory judicial order to completely restrain INEC from recognizing any political candidates produced by that specific primary process.
Initially, the Federal High Court in Abuja, presided over by Justice Emeka Nwite, had dismissed Babatunde’s suit in January 2026. Justice Nwite had held at the time that the Gombe-led party leadership was valid, its internal administrative processes were entirely lawful, and its candidates were properly selected.
However, upon appeal, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal, led by Justice Eberechi Nyesom-Wike alongside Justices Abba Mohammed and Oyejoju Oyewumi, took a sharply different view. The appellate panel ruled that the trial court had acted entirely without jurisdiction regarding several foundational findings, rendering those specific conclusions null, void, and of no legal consequence.
In its formal pronouncement, the appellate court had stated that "the appeal succeeds in part," while affirming a narrow technical point that Babatunde himself was not an active aspirant in the disputed primary election. Yet, even as the Court of Appeal nullified significant portions of the Federal High Court judgment, it still referenced an official INEC monitoring report. That report indicated that an actual primary election had physically taken place and had produced a clear winner in the person of Mr. Bankole Oludele.
Following the delivery of that now-defunct appellate judgment, the Independent National Electoral Commission had taken swift steps in April 2026 to update its public databases and official political records. The commission adjusted its registry to reflect Shehu Gabam as the authentic National Chairman. Along with Gabam, INEC recognized an entire slate of National Working Committee officials, including Dr. Olu Agunloye as National Secretary, Hajia Maggie Mariam as National Treasurer, and Aderemi Abimbola as National Legal Adviser. Crucially, the commission had appended a regulatory tag to the party structure, indicating that it was operating strictly under a "By Court Order" arrangement.
With the Supreme Court’s latest, definitive ruling completely dismantling the foundation of that appellate framework, the official recognition previously extended to Gabam and his executive team has been stripped of its legal validity. Legal experts and political analysts expect that INEC will be forced to urgently review its records once again to determine which faction possesses the legitimate right to administer the party's affairs and field candidates for upcoming national elections. The apex court's intervention underscores the supreme authority of the judiciary in interpreting party constitutions, leaving the future of the Social Democratic Party hanging in a delicate balance.
