The Federal High Court, Abuja, on Friday, adjourned the suit seeking to disqualify former President Goodluck Jonathan from contesting for the president in subsequent elections, to May 18.

The Presiding Judge of the Federal high Court, Justice Peter Lifu, cautioned the plaintiff, Johnmary Jideobi, and his Counsel, Ndubuisi Ukpai, for unnecessary delay and lack of diligence to pursue the suit to stop former President Goodluck Jonathan from contesting the 2027 presidential election.

Justice Lifu declared that the action of the plaintiff, including the attitude of his lawyer, which had continued to stall proceedings, unacceptable. The Judge, therefore, awarded N1 million fine against the plaintiff in favour of the ex-president.

The judge equally observed that on May 11, neither Jideobi, who is also a lawyer, nor Ukpai, was in court on Friday despite fixing the hearing time at 2.00pm at the instance of the plaintiff's lawyer on May 5.

He further noted that, though, Uche asked for a N5 million cost, the request was not granted in the interest of fair hearing.

The Judge said he has carefully and painstakingly considered all the submissions and prayers of the learners counsel in this matter; he posited that the duty of the court is to ensure that political cases are given accelerated hearing and disposed of expeditiously.

He stated that the plaintiff, who filed the suit in October 6, 2025, and has not deemed it fit to serve relevant parties, was granted grace of two hours to serve all the processes to the 2nd and 3rd defendants - INEC and AGF - unfailingly.

Justice Lifu also directed the 2nd and 3rd defendants to file and serve their responses, if any, before 11am on Monday, 18th of May, 2026.

After taking submissions of all the lawyers, the judge adjourned the matter to May 18 for definite hearing of all pending applications and the substantive suit at 12 noon.