There is a dangerous shift that often begins quietly within institutions. It neither announces itself with defiance nor does it arrive with open resistance. Rather, it creeps in through something far more subtle — selective compliance.
When a public institution begins to choose which lawful orders to obey, and which to defer, it crosses an invisible line. Beyond that line, authority is no longer anchored in law. It becomes a function of discretion.
That line is now in clear and glaring view.
On March 5, 2025, the Federal High Court in Abuja issued a clear and binding judgment directing the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognise the National Working Committee of the National Rescue Movement (NRM) under the leadership of Chief Edozie Njoku.
The language of that judgment was neither advisory nor conditional. It imposed a clear obligation on INEC.
One year later, that obligation remains unmet.
This is not a matter of administrative delay, because delay has a consistent character. It suggests process, hesitation, and sometimes even caution. What is before us therefore, is something else entirely: a sustained refusal to give effect to a valid and subsisting judicial pronouncement.
The implications of this cannot be trivialised given the realities of our democratic experience.
In recent times, the Commission has demonstrated that it is fully capable of acting with speed and clarity when confronted with judicial determinations in similar circumstances, including the recent matter involving the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
This establishes the critical fact that the capacity to execute a judgment is not the issue.
What then explains the disparity?
Once capacity is established, and yet compliance varies, only one conclusion remains, and that is the emergence of *selectivity*.
And selectivity, within a constitutional order, is not a procedural defect but a structural risk.
Because when compliance becomes selective, three consequences follow inevitably and without exception.
First, the authority of the courts begins to thin; not immediately, not dramatically, but steadily. Each ignored judgment does not merely affect the parties before the court; it signals to the wider system that judicial pronouncements can be negotiated by delay.
Second, regulatory credibility begins to fragment. An institution that applies legal outcomes unevenly cannot sustain the confidence required to arbitrate a complex political environment. Its decisions, however well-intentioned, become subject to interpretation rather than acceptance.
Third, and most critically, the principle of equal treatment under the law begins to erode. What remains is not order, but hierarchy; a system in which outcomes are shaped not solely by law, but by the varying weight of those subject to it. A dangerous and anti-democratic doctrine of graded morality.
These are not theoretical risks, but the predictable consequences of a pattern.
As contempt proceedings soon resumes in the NRM vs INEC matter, INEC must clearly understand that the proceedings carry a significance that extends beyond the immediate parties.
They present a moment of reckoning, not in a dramatic sense, but in the institutional sense. A point at which a choice must be made, clearly and without ambiguity.
And that choice is simple.
Either a valid judgment of a competent court is binding on all institutions, in all similar circumstances, and within a reasonable timeframe, or it is not.
There is no stable middle ground.
If it is binding, then compliance cannot be staggered, deferred, or selectively applied without consequence. If it is not, then the implications extend far beyond any single political party; they reach into the very foundation of regulatory authority itself.
For the INEC, this is not merely a procedural matter. Rather, it is a test of coherence. Institutions do not lose credibility in a single moment; they lose it in increments, through decisions that appear isolated at the time, but cumulative in their effect.
What is required now is not explanation, and certainly not justification; the facts are already established, and the legal position defined.
What remains is action.
Because in the final analysis, the durability of any institution rests on a simple expectation — that it will act in accordance with the law, consistently, predictably, and without preference.
Anything less introduces a question the system cannot afford to entertain:
Whether compliance is still a duty, or has become a choice. And the answer to that question, in the coming days and months, will determine the endurance, and even perception, of INEC, as an unbiased electoral umpire.
By Chinedu Anselem Nebeife is the National Publicity Secretary, National Rescue Movement, NRM.
