From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has declared illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional, the plan by a former Presidential candidate, Prof Pat Utomi to establish Shadow Government in Nigeria.
Justice James Omotosho in his judgment, issued an order restraining Utomi and his associates from proceeding with their plan to establish a shadow government/cabinet in the country.
The suit was filed by the Department of State Services (DSS) marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/937/2025, against Utomi.
The judge declared the concept of shadow government/cabinet as unconstitutional and an alien concept to the nation’s presidential system of government.
He held that Utomi and his associates cannot hide under the rights of association and to criticise the government to engage in unlawful activities.
He commended the plaintiff for filing the suit and held among others, that it was within the right of the DSS to take steps to prevent acts capable today threatening the nation’s internal security
The court held that the agency acted appropriately by approaching it to stop an action capable of posing a threat to national security.
The DSS had in the suit accused Prof. Utomi who was the candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, in the 2007 presidential election, of attempting to illegally usurp the executive powers of President Bola Tinubu.
It told the court that the defendant’s action was capable of destabilising the country as it was intended to create chaos.
According to the agency, the planned shadow government was not only an aberration but constituted a grave attack on the Constitution and a threat to the democratically elected government that is currently in place.
It told the court that such a structure, if left unchecked, may incite political unrest, cause intergroup tensions and embolden other unlawful actors or separatist entities to replicate similar parallel arrangements, all of which would pose a grave threat to national security.
Among other reliefs, the plaintiff prayed the court to declare the purported “shadow government” or “shadow cabinet” being planned by the defendant and his associates as “unconstitutional as it amounts to an attempt to create a parallel authority not recognized by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).”
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