By Rayyanu Bala

Let me start by saying, right from the outset, that I am not a lawyer, so my position is based on my understanding as a layman. However, even as a layman, one can still read and understand a judgment delivered by a court. Do you necessarily need a lawyer to interpret a court judgment, particularly one as significant as yesterday’s Supreme Court judgment? No.
There is therefore a point in every legal dispute when argument must give way to judgment. For the controversy surrounding Sections 77 and 84 of the Electoral Act 2026, that moment came on September 24, 2026, when the Supreme Court reversed the earlier Court of Appeal decision and restored the disputed provisions. A seven-member panel, in a unanimous decision led by Justice Adamu Jauro, upheld Sections 77(5), 77(6), 77(7) and 84(2).
That decision has changed the legal landscape.
And that is precisely why the present debate over the political future of former Inspector-General of Police Mohammed Abubakar Adamu deserves a fresh examination.
From the beginning of this controversy, the Court of Appeal judgment was treated by those who benefited from it as a major legal breakthrough. If, as has been publicly argued, that judgment provided part of the legal confidence behind Adamu’s move from the APC to the SDP, then the Supreme Court’s reversal inevitably raises a straightforward question:
If the Court of Appeal judgment was good enough to celebrate when it supported your position, why should the Supreme Court judgment be dismissed now that it has gone the other way?
The Supreme Court has now restored provisions that the Court of Appeal had struck down. It did not merely offer another opinion in an ongoing public debate; it determined the appeal before it and reinstated the statutory provisions in question.
That is the reality every political actor must now confront in Nasarawa state.
If the Supreme Court had affirmed the Court of Appeal’s position, it is reasonable to imagine that those who relied upon the appellate judgment would have celebrated the outcome as a victory for their position. The same respect for the judicial process requires that the Supreme Court’s decision be acknowledged now that it has overturned that position.
What Section 77 now means
One of the important provisions restored by the Supreme Court is Section 77(5)–(7).
The restored provisions establish rules concerning the membership register submitted to INEC before party primaries, congresses and conventions. Section 77(5) concerns persons whose names appear on the register submitted within the prescribed period; Section 77(6) restricts parties from using a different register for their primaries and related activities; and Section 77(7) prescribes a consequence for a party that fails to submit its membership register as required.
That is no longer merely an argument about whether the National Assembly was entitled to enact those provisions.
The Supreme Court has settled the constitutional challenge in favour of the validity of the provisions.
The practical question therefore becomes: how do the facts surrounding any particular candidate measure against those statutory requirements?
That question must be answered from the actual INEC records, party registers, nomination documents and primary-election records—not from political speeches or social-media arguments.
Section 84 must also be read as it now stands
The same applies to Section 84.
The Supreme Court restored Section 84(2), which provides for the statutory procedure for nomination of candidates through direct primaries or consensus.
This means that arguments built entirely upon the Court of Appeal’s rejection of the provision can no longer be treated as reflecting the final state of the law.
The Supreme Court has spoken.
Those defending a particular nomination therefore have to engage with the law as it exists after the Supreme Court judgment, rather than continue arguing from a judgment that has now been reversed.
But there is another important distinction here.
There is a difference between the right to join a political party and the statutory conditions for becoming that party’s candidate.
A citizen’s freedom of association does not, by itself, settle every question concerning eligibility, nomination, party primaries or compliance with the Electoral Act.
Consequently, even if former IGP Adamu was legally entitled to leave one political party and join another, that does not automatically answer every question concerning his eligibility to emerge as the new party’s candidate.
Those questions must be tested against the Electoral Act 2026.
That is where the argument should now be focused.
ex-IGP’s Supporters must confront the new reality
The most important message to supporters of former IGP Adamu is therefore simple: the legal position has changed, and political argument cannot change the judgment of the Supreme Court.
There is nothing wrong with defending your candidate. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with a judgment.
But there is a difference between disagreement with a judgment and pretending that the judgment does not exist.
The Supreme Court has reversed the Court of Appeal on the disputed provisions and restored them.
The responsible next step is therefore not to relitigate the Court of Appeal judgment on social media. It is to ask the harder questions:
Was the relevant party membership register submitted to INEC within the statutory period?
What names appeared on that register?
What does the party’s primary-election record show?
What nomination documents were submitted?
And, most importantly, how do those facts interact with the provisions now restored by the Supreme Court?
Those are questions of law and evidence.
No amount of political noise can change a final judgment.
ex-IGP’s supporters should brace themselves for the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision rather than continue relying on a Court of Appeal judgment that has been overturned.
The Supreme Court has spoken.
The Court of Appeal’s position on the disputed provisions is no longer the controlling position.
And whatever one’s political preference may be, the starting point for every further argument must now be the law as determined by the apex court on September 24, 2026.