Court awards N100m costs against ADC official after striking out alleged judicial bias suit

The Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday ordered Nkemakolam Ukandu, the National Welfare Secretary of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), to pay N50 million each to John Tsoho, Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, and Justice Peter Lifu after striking out his suit against them.

Justice Salim Ibrahim made the order following an oral application by J.U.K. Igwe (SAN), counsel to Justices Tsoho and Lifu.

The court directed Ukandu to pay the total sum of N100 million within 14 days.

Earlier, Justice Ibrahim struck out the suit for lack of diligent prosecution after neither Ukandu nor his counsel appeared in court to prosecute the matter.

Ukandu had instituted the suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1165/2026, against the National Judicial Council (NJC), Justice Tsoho and Justice Lifu as first, second and third defendants, respectively.

In the suit, he sought an order compelling the NJC to investigate allegations of corruption, abuse of judicial powers and bias allegedly involving the two judges.

The court noted that neither the plaintiff nor his counsel had appeared since the matter was assigned to Justice Ibrahim.

At the previous sitting on June 30, the judge had warned that the suit would be dismissed if the plaintiff or his counsel failed to appear at the next adjourned date.

The case arose from the leadership dispute within the African Democratic Congress, involving an aggrieved party member, Nafiu-Bala Gombe, whose substantive case is pending before Justice Lifu.