A Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday sacked the leadership of the African Democratic Congress, ADC,headed by former Senate President David Mark and nullified every decision the party has taken under it — including the presidential primary that produced former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as the party’s flag bearer for the 2027 election.
In a judgment delivered by Justice Peter Odo Lifu, the court declared the Mark-led interim (caretaker) executive illegal, voided the emergence of Mark as National Chairman, former Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola as National Secretary, and all other national officers, and cancelled the nominations of every candidate the party is presenting for the 2027 general elections — from the presidency down to the state assemblies.
The court held that the process through which the Mark leadership took over the party violated the ADC’s own constitution, the Electoral Act and the 1999 Constitution.
It also ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, not to recognise or act on any decisions taken at the party’s 99th National Executive Committee meeting of July 27, 2025 — the meeting at which the takeover structure was consolidated.
The ruling is a body blow to the main opposition coalition barely ten weeks before the January 16, 2027 presidential election, and came barely 24 hours after Atiku — whose name INEC had already published as the ADC’s candidate — flagged off the party’s campaign at a mass rally in Sokoto State. The former vice president has reportedly picked former Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi as his running mate.
The plaintiff’s case
The judgment followed a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1819/2025, filed by Nafiu Bala Gombe, the party’s former Deputy National Chairman (North-East), who laid claim to being the legitimate national chairman.
Also Read: DSS denies Atiku’s allegation on Sokoto protests, claims impartiality
Gombe argued that when Chief Ralph Nwosu, the party’s long-time National Chairman, stepped down in July 2025 to make room for the incoming coalition politicians, he — as the most senior deputy — was constitutionally entitled to assume the leadership.
Instead, the party’s structure was handed over at a ceremony at the Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja to Mark as Interim National Chairman and Aregbesola as Interim National Secretary, on the recommendation of a coalition of opposition heavyweights that includes Atiku, former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, Amaechi and other defectors mainly from the APC and the PDP.
Gombe asked the court to nullify all decisions taken by the Mark-led leadership and to restrain Mark and Aregbesola from parading themselves as National Chairman and National Secretary. The ADC, INEC, Mark, Aregbesola and Nwosu were listed as first to fifth defendants.
Upholding his claims in full, Justice Lifu granted all the reliefs sought, effectively invalidating everything the interim leadership has done in the name of the party.
“The court upheld Gombe’s claims and granted the reliefs sought,” his lead counsel, Lukman Fagbemi (SAN), told reporters after the judgment. “All the actions taken by the ADC as a party since July 27 [2025] to date stand annulled.”
Another member of the plaintiff’s legal team, Luka Musa Haruna, SAN, said the judgment leaves the ADC without a single valid candidate for any elective position in 2027 — “from the presidency to the governorship, Senate and House of Assembly.”
Reacting for the party, Nkemakolam Ukandu, the ADC’s National Welfare Secretary, who was joined in the suit as an interested party, said the party would appeal the judgment.
How the crisis began
The ADC was, until July 2025, a marginal party led by Nwosu. That changed when a coalition of opposition figures — desperate to avoid a repeat of the 2023 election, in which Atiku, Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the NNPP split the anti-APC vote and handed President Bola Tinubu victory with barely 36 per cent — adopted the party as their joint platform to challenge Tinubu in 2027.
On July 2, 2025, the coalition formally unveiled the ADC at the Yar’Adua Centre. Nwosu stepped down as chairman, and Mark — a former two-term Senate President and one-time military Governor of Benue State — emerged as Interim National Chairman, with Aregbesola, a former Osun governor and ex-Minister of Interior, as Interim National Secretary.
The arrangement was consolidated in late July 2025, including at the party’s 99th NEC meeting of July 27 — the very decisions Thursday’s judgment has now voided.
Gombe, who was Nwosu’s deputy from the North-East, went to court almost immediately, insisting the takeover breached both the ADC constitution and the Electoral Act.
The legal zigzag: from status quo to the Supreme Court — and back
The litigation zigzagged through the courts for more than a year:
– The Federal High Court ordered all parties to maintain the status quo pending the determination of the substantive suit.
– On March 12, 2026, the Court of Appeal dismissed an interlocutory appeal by the Mark-led faction and ordered all parties — including INEC — to maintain the status quo.
– Two factional letters landed on INEC’s desk on March 16, 2026: the Mark faction urged the commission not to recognise Gombe; the Gombe faction asked INEC to give effect to the appellate ruling.
– On April 1, 2026, INEC removed Mark’s and Aregbesola’s names from its website, saying it would recognise no faction while the dispute was unresolved — a development that drew protests from party members who accused the commission of bias.
– Mark’s faction then escalated to the Supreme Court, challenging the appellate order. On April 30, 2026, a five-member panel led by Justice Lawal Garba unanimously upheld Mark’s appeal, set aside the status quo order — holding that preservative orders relate only to live proceedings — and directed the Federal High Court to conclude the substantive suit.
– Back at the trial court, Justice Lifu on June 16, 2026 dismissed recusal applications filed against him by the ADC and Aregbesola — who had alleged bias — and fined each of them N1 million in Gombe’s favour.
– On October 5, 2026, after final arguments, the judge reserved judgment — which he delivered on Thursday.
Separately, other aggrieved party members, among them Dumebi Kachikwu, the ADC’s 2023 presidential candidate, have filed their own challenges, framing the July 2025 takeover as an illegitimate usurpation.
The primary the court has just erased
At a direct primary conducted across Nigeria’s 8,809 wards and collated in Abuja on May 28, 2026, Atiku polled 1,846,370 votes to defeat Amaechi (504,117) and Mohammed Hayatu-Deen (177,120), of 2,527,977 total votes cast from a registered membership of 3,113,599. It was the seventh presidential bid of the 79-year-old former vice president, who lost to Tinubu in 2023 on the PDP platform and defected to the ADC in 2025.
Both defeated contestants disputed the exercise. Amaechi rejected the results, alleging “widespread voter disenfranchisement” and claiming about 80 per cent of members were not allowed to vote; Hayatu-Deen cited reports of rigging he said he had personally observed.
Atiku launched his campaign in Sokoto on Wednesday — with INEC having already published his name for the January 16, 2027 poll. That candidacy now hangs by a thread, pending the appeal the party has promised.
What next
Legal attention will shift almost immediately to the Court of Appeal, where the ADC is expected to appeal and to seek a stay of execution. Much will also depend on INEC, which the court has barred from recognising or acting on the decisions of the Mark leadership — the same commission that had already washed its hands of both factions in April.
If the judgment stands, the ADC would need to produce a new leadership and re-run its nomination processes within INEC’s timetable — or see its presidential ticket and hundreds of down-ballot nominations lapse. For a coalition built around a single, ageing figurehead and already fraying over Peter Obi’s reluctance to formally defect from the Labour Party, the ruling threatens the one thing its architects said 2027 would not be: another divided opposition.
Crediblenewsng.com
