Court declares Pat Utomi’s shadow govt illegal

Utomi

The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Monday declared the decision of a former presidential candidate, Prof. Patrick Utomi, to form a shadow government in the country as illegal and unconditional.The court, in the judgment that was delivered by Justice James Omotosho, held that the concept or formation of a shadow government/cabinet is alien to both the 1999 Constitution, as amended, and the presidential system of government that the nation is practising.

Consequently, it issued an order, restraining Prof. Utomi and his associates from proceeding with the plan, saying they could not hide under their right to criticise or hold the government accountable, to engage in unlawful activities.

The judgement followed a suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/937/2025, which was brought before the court by the Department of State Services, DSS.

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).” Vanguard