ADC Chieftain Drags FHC CJ, Tsoho, Justice Abdulmalik to Court over Alleged Bias

• Seeks order directing judge to desist from further hearing of ADC’s case

Alex Enumah in Abuja

National Welfare Secretary of African Democratic Congress (ADC), Nkemakolam Ukandu, has dragged Chief Judge of the Federal High Court (FHC), Justice John Tsoho; a judge of the FHC, Abuja, Justice Joyce Abdulmalik; and a Court Bailiff, Moses Bentu, to a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) over alleged bias in the hearing of the party’s case at the court.

The claimant is specifically asking the FCT High Court to void the reassignment of a suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1331/2025, by Tsoho to Abdulmalik, for being in disobedience of an order of the FCT High Court.

The claimant is also challenging the continued hearing of the case by a faction of ADC, led by Dumebi Kachikwu, by Abdulmalik over alleged manifest bias.

Kachikwu, Adikwu Elias, Etimbuk Umoh, Muhammad Khala, and Alakum William had sued Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), ADC, Chief Ralph Nwosu, Senator David Mark, and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, over the leadership of ADC.

Following an application in July last year, Abdulmalik had joined the claimant as the sixth respondent in the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1331/2025.

Ukandu stated that problems started when the judge came down heavily on his counsel at the proceedings of October 23, 2025 for not filing response to the originating summons served on him barely 24 hours by plaintiffs’ counsel and then abridged time of response from 30 days to seven, including Saturday and Sunday.

Ukandu averred in a 42-paragraph statement of claim, “The claimant being dissatisfied with the ruling, petitioned the second defendant against the said ruling and demanded for a transfer of his case to another judge on grounds of manifest bias/grave likelihood of bias on the part of the court against the claimant.

“The claimant thereafter filed a Notice of Appeal, compiled and transmitted Record of Appeal and the appeal entered at the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division.

“In addition, the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, has given March 2, 2026 for the hearing of the claimant’s application.”

He lamented that the CJ, in a letter dated November 7, 2025, and addressed to the claimant’s counsel, directed the court to proceed with the hearing of the matter, despite a pending appeal at the Court of Appeal, a development that led the claimant to file an action against the second defendant in suit No: FCT/HC/CV/4684/2025: Nkemakolam Ukandu VS. Justice James Tsoho and two others, “wherein the 2nd defendant was directed to maintain status qou in Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/1331/2025: Dumebi Kachikwu and four others & VS. INEC and five others.”

Ukandu contended that despite the pendency of the matter and the order of the FCT High Court, which directed the second defendant to maintain staus quo in Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/1331/2025, the second defendant, in disobedience to the said order, went ahead and reassigned Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/1331/2025 to the first defendant.

The reliefs he sought in the suit marked: FCT/HC/CV/619/26 and filed February 12, included a declaration that the reassignment of suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/1331/2025 … by the second defendant to the first defendant “is unlawful, null and void and of no effects whatsoever as the order of reassignment by the 2nd defendant was made in flagrant disobedience to the order of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, wherein the 2nd defendant was directed to maintain status quo in Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/1331/2025”.

The claimant is also seeking for an order of court setting aside the order of reassignment in Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/1331/2025 by the 2nd defendant to the 1st defendant … for being an order made by the second defendant in flagrant disobedience to the order of the FCT High Court.

He also sought, “An order of restraining the 1st defendant from continuing to preside over Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/1331/2025.

“An order of court directing the first defendant to recuse herself in suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/1331/2025 … on grounds of manifest bias/grave likelihood of bias on the part of the first and second defendants against the claimant.”