The Federal High Court in Abuja has scheduled July 6 for the hearing of a suit challenging the outcome of the All Progressives Congress primary election for the Delta South Senatorial District.
Justice Mohammed Umar fixed the date on Wednesday after counsel to the plaintiff, Bankole Akomolafe, requested a brief adjournment to enable him file a response to the statement of defence submitted by the first defendant, Senator Joel Onowakpo.
Akomolafe explained that although the defence was filed on June 24, it was only served on his team shortly before Wednesday’s proceedings.
“The matter was originally slated for hearing and we were prepared to proceed. However, we only received the statement of defence shortly before today’s sitting, so we require a short period to file our response,” Akomolafe told the court.
Following the application, Justice Umar adjourned the case to July 6 for definite hearing and directed all parties to file and exchange all outstanding court processes before the next sitting. The judge also ordered that fresh hearing notices be served on all parties in the suit.
The case, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1094/2026, was filed by former Chairman of the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, Micheal Diden, who is challenging the outcome of the APC direct primary conducted on May 18, 2026.
During Wednesday’s proceedings, Lukman Fagbemi appeared on behalf of the APC, while the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), despite being served with hearing notices, was not represented in court.
Diden is asking the court to declare him the rightful winner of the primary election, insisting that he secured the highest number of lawful votes.
In the suit, Diden alleged that Senator Onowakpo unlawfully declared himself the winner by relying on what he described as manipulated and forged election results.
According to the plaintiff, the APC National Working Committee had directed that the collation and announcement of the primary election results would be carried out only in Abuja after results from the field had been submitted.
He claimed that, contrary to the party’s directive, Onowakpo announced himself winner through various media platforms before the official collation process was concluded.
Diden further alleged that the authentic ward-by-ward results from the eight local government areas in Delta South showed that he polled 96,893 votes, while Onowakpo secured 31,918 votes.
He also informed the court that APC leaders, stakeholders, women, youths and party members in the senatorial district had petitioned the party’s national leadership, urging it to reject what they described as a fraudulent declaration of the primary election result.
Among the reliefs sought, Diden is asking the court to declare him the valid winner of the APC primary, compel the APC to forward his name to INEC as its candidate for the 2027 Delta South Senatorial election, and direct the electoral commission to accept his nomination.
