NDC, PMP, INEC and the Doctrine of Estoppel by Standing by

CAN a party remain passive while its interest is being litigated and after judgment seek to reopen the matter? My Supreme Court case on Estoppel by Standing By suggests not.

The reports that emerged on Friday, 26 June 2026, of the Federal High Court sitting in Lokoja setting aside its own earlier judgment of December 2025, which had directed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to register the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) as a political party, immediately brought to my mind one of the most intellectually fulfilling appeals of my professional career before the SUPREME COURT OF NIGERIA.

In that matter, I had the singular privilege of being Lead Counsel for the Respondents in OBINECHE & ORS. V. AKUSOBI & ORS. (2010) LPELR-2178 (SC); (2010) All FWLR (Pt. 533) 1839.

The Supreme Court, in that case, laid down enduring principles that have become leading Nigerian authorities on the doctrine of Estoppel by Standing By, otherwise known as Estoppel by Conduct or Estoppel by Acquiescence.

While the judgment firmly established several important legal principles, its deepest personal significance for me lay elsewhere. It brought final closure to a protracted land dispute that had commenced as far back as 1947; a litigation that spanned the colonial era, regional governments, and successive constitutional dispensations, only reaching its judicial conclusion more than six decades later.

My own involvement began in 2003, when representatives of the Umuchoke Community of Dikenafai in Ideato South LGA, Imo State retained me to lead their legal team at the Supreme Court.

At the time, I was practising in Aba, Abia State, and had already represented members of the community at the Magistrate Court in Dikenafai, in several criminal matters arising from persistent tensions over the same disputed land. The history of that dispute remains remarkable.

My clients derived their title from a judgment delivered on 21 February 1952 by the Governor’s Court of Appeal sitting at Enugu, under Section 31 of the Native Courts Ordinance (Cap. 142), in Appeal No. 5/1952.

That appeal itself flowed from proceedings initiated in Civil Suit No. 301/47 before the Northern Isu Native Court, and had passed on appeals through colonial administrators including the Acting District Officer of Orlu Division, Mr. A. E. Rylands, and the Senior District Officer exercising Resident’s powers, Flight Lieutenant O. J. F. Jones Lloyd.

Crucially, the successful 1952 proceedings were between my clients and a neighbouring community. The eventual Appellants before the Supreme Court had not been parties to those proceedings.

It was precisely this feature that struck me when I reflected on the current controversy involving the NDC. The Appellants had contended that, not having been joined in the 1952 litigation, they were neither bound by nor affected by the judgment.

That argument, though superficially attractive, could not withstand closer scrutiny. The evidence showed that the Appellants had occupied adjoining portions of the land as early as 1944, several years before the litigation even commenced in 1947.

The Supreme Court accepted my submission that, having lived in such close proximity to the disputed land throughout the entire period of the litigation, they could not credibly claim ignorance of proceedings that culminated in the 1952 judgment.

By knowingly standing by while others litigated issues directly touching their alleged interests, they were precluded from reopening the matter later. In law, they were caught by the doctrine of Estoppel by Standing By.

This doctrine rests on a simple yet profound principle of justice: the law will not allow a person who has knowledge of proceedings affecting his claimed rights to remain deliberately passive while another expends time, resources and effort in the litigation, only to emerge afterwards and seek to unsettle what has been judicially determined.

Equity views such conduct as unconscionable. The administration of justice would be thrown into perpetual uncertainty if judgments could be reopened at the pleasure of those who chose to remain spectators rather than participants.

It is against this jurisprudential foundation that the recent proceedings concerning the NDC invite sober reflection. The litigation between the NDC and INEC stemmed from INEC’s refusal to register the party, reportedly on the ground that its “victory sign” logo bore an impermissible resemblance to that of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Contemporary reports of the hearing indicate that the learned trial Judge caused both logos to be displayed in open court and queried how the NDC’s emblem could reasonably be mistaken for the APC’s broom symbol.

The reaction in court, as reported, suggested that many viewed the comparison as clearly unsustainable. I was neither counsel nor a participant in those proceedings. My understanding, like that of most Nigerians, is drawn entirely from public reports.

Assuming those reports accurately capture the events, the case clearly attracted significant public attention. If, therefore, the Peace Movement Party (PMP) genuinely believed that its legal interests were imperilled by the reliefs sought in that action, pertinent question arise:

a. Why did it not apply to be joined as a party while the matter was still pending?

b. Why was no intervention sought promptly after judgment?

c. Why was no appeal filed if the PMP considered itself sufficiently affected?

d. Why was the matter allowed to lie fallow for nearly six months, during which INEC complied with the judgment by registering the NDC, issuing its certificate, and enabling the party to begin organising and participating in the democratic process? These are not idle questions.

They go to the very heart of the equitable doctrine of acquiescence. Across the common law tradition, the doctrine of Estoppel by Standing By exists precisely to prevent this species of forensic ambush.

Where a party with knowledge of litigation concerning an interest it claims, permits the proceedings to run their course without intervening, equity may thereafter bar it from challenging the outcome.

The doctrine promotes the public interest in the finality of litigation, legal certainty, and fairness among parties. Courts are established to resolve disputes, not to enable endless cycles of relitigation.

Whether the doctrine ultimately applies to the facts of the NDC proceedings is, of course, a matter that may engage the appellate courts. Much will turn on issues such as the PMP’s actual knowledge of the proceedings, whether it was a necessary party, whether it possessed a legally protectable interest, and whether its delay amounted in law to acquiescence.

Equally important, and deserving of separate and careful consideration, is the question whether the Federal High Court, having delivered a final judgment in December 2025, retained the jurisdiction to revisit the merits of that decision.

It is elementary that a court becomes functus officio once it has finally determined the rights of the parties, except in the narrow and exceptional circumstances recognised by law; such as where the judgment is a nullity, procured by fraud, or attended by a fundamental breach of fair hearing.

Whether such exceptions truly arose here will undoubtedly attract rigorous appellate examination. Whatever one’s view on the merits, the issues now raised extend far beyond the fortunes of any particular political association.

They engage fundamental questions touching the finality of judgments, the equitable consequences of acquiescence, the limits of a trial court’s post-judgment powers, and the delicate balance between procedural fairness and legal certainty in our jurisprudence.

These matters deserve measured judicial determination, for their resolution will help define the future contours of Nigeria’s democratic governance under the rule of law.