Political tension has intensified across Nigeria following the decision by the Independent National Electoral Commission to remove the names of the leaders of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) from its official portal.
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INEC’s action effectively indicated that, in its current state, the ADC is considered non-existent.
In response, key party chieftains expressed outrage over the decision, which comes just days ahead of the ADC’s scheduled congresses and national convention.
Reports indicate that on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, INEC informed the public of its decision to maintain the status quo in the leadership dispute within the ADC, citing compliance with the Court of Appeal judgment in Appeal No. CA/ABJ/145/2026: Senator David Mark v. Hon. Nafiu Bala Gombe & Ors.
INEC stated that the decision followed a careful review of the Court of Appeal ruling delivered on March 12, 2026, as well as consideration of the ongoing case before the Federal High Court, Abuja.
The Commission noted that it had previously received two separate letters, dated March 16, 2026, from different law firms representing opposing interests in the party.
The first, from Suleiman Usman SAN & Co., represented concerned ADC stakeholders, warning INEC against recognizing Hon. Nafiu Bala Gombe as Acting National Chairman while the matter remained before the Federal High Court.
Conversely, Summit Law Chambers, representing Hon. Gombe, urged INEC to enforce the Court of Appeal’s judgment by ceasing recognition of Senator David Mark and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola as National Chairman and National Secretary of the party.
In another letter dated March 27, 2026, Summit Law Chambers alleged that INEC had disobeyed the Court of Appeal’s orders by involving Senator David Mark’s faction in party meetings and monitoring a purported National Executive Committee gathering convened by that group.
The Court of Appeal had dismissed Senator David Mark’s interlocutory appeal and directed the parties to maintain the status quo ante bellum pending resolution of the substantive suit before the Federal High Court. It also ordered an accelerated hearing in line with the electoral timetable and warned against actions that could prejudice the case.
INEC noted that the current National Working Committee of the ADC emerged from a National Executive Council meeting held on July 29, 2025, following the resignation of the previous executive committee led by Mr. Ralph Okey Nwosu.
Hon. Nafiu Bala Gombe, formerly National Vice Chairman, maintains that he did not resign and, under the party’s constitution, should assume leadership following the Chairman’s resignation. He subsequently filed Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/1819/2025 on September 2, 2025, seeking to restrain Senator David Mark’s group from acting as party leaders and to compel INEC to recognize him as Acting National Chairman.
INEC stated that the names of Senator David Mark’s current National Working Committee were uploaded to its portal on September 9, 2025, following a request received on September 4, 2025. After reviewing the judgment and all relevant processes, INEC resolved to maintain the situation as it existed prior to September 2, 2025, and to refrain from actions that could affect the Federal High Court proceedings.
The Commission further declared that it will not accept communications from, or engage with, any contending party regarding ADC affairs, nor will it monitor any meetings, congresses, or conventions convened by any faction until the court resolves the matter. In line with maintaining the status quo, the Commission will remove the names of Senator David Mark’s National Working Committee from its portal.
Speaking at the ADC World Press Conference in Abuja on Thursday, veteran actor and politician Kenneth Okonkwo asserted that Gombe had resigned and was no longer a member of the party.
His words, “Well, that decision is absurd, very unfortunate. It has shown that the INEC chairman is unfit to be the chairman of an independent, impartial agency of government.
“Whoever is supposed to be the chairman of INEC is a man who is supposed to be independent.
“He should be a man that is built by nature against the influences of government, whether judiciary, whether executive, whether legislature.
“Please, has there been any time that ADC had no leadership? So how come that INEC is interpreting the court’s decision and making an absurdity about it? Let me give you an example. PDP has two factions and they were in court, one faction went ahead, conducted a convention, the other party was still in court, yet INEC recognized them within 24 hours.
“Why didn’t they say that because there are court cases they will not recognize either faction?
“Now, there is one person [Bala Nafiu alone], please, is one person NEC? Is one person a party? And then, you’re saying that the whole party is on one side, and one person that has resigned by his own handwriting and INEC accepted the resignation. What other process does the political party have to take when somebody has resigned from his party and yet INEC is placing that person on one side?
“Does that not tell you that APC and the President do not want an election? They do not want democracy. If they don’t want democracy, then let us proceed with a demonstration of crazy democracy, because anything they want Nigerians can give it to them.
“It’s either you want democracy or you want undemocracy. Whichever one you want, Nigerians will give it to you.
“We’ve had enough. Whichever one they want. Amupitan should go. He should just get out. He’s the worst human being that I’ve ever met.
“Now let me give you an example. With Professor Mahmood Yakubu, you will be talking about whether you have free and fair elections. But with Joash Amupitan, you’ll be talking about whether you have an election at all.
“So as terrible as Yakubu was with the technical glitch, with Joash, you won’t even have an election at all. How can you come out and say there is no opposition? There is nothing like PDP anywhere.
“What you have is PDAPC singing on your mandate for Tinubu. So they are gone already, and they are not hiding it. And INEC recognizes that faction that is singing on your mandate we shall stand.
“Restore ADC today, not tomorrow, because it may be too late. ADC is a political party. The courts are very clear that internal affairs of political parties are not justiciable.
“The court has no right to issue an order that will affect the internal affairs of a political party.
“So, the way forward is the status quo ante bellum, which means David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola, they are the chairman and the Secretary of ADC.
“Restore them today, not tomorrow, because they are running out of time. We’ve had enough. Because if you say I am not going to participate in the election of 2027 and you say that all the democratic people cannot participate democratically, then you cannot stop them from participating undemocratically.
“The truth is, either you are allowing democratic practices or you are allowing undemocratic practices. You can choose from both. Why we subscribe to democracy is to have a choice.
“So if you say we will not have a choice, then you don’t have the choice to govern us, because sovereignty belongs to the people from which every government derives its power.
“What I’m saying is that no court ordered INEC to remove David Mark. So it was a decision by INEC, and INEC must do it now and reverse it.”
Also speaking, Aisha Yesufu, a human rights activist, social commentator and an ardent follower of Peter Obi, said, “I think what you should be thinking about is that, ‘why are some people afraid?’ The same people who say they have won the election have 31 governors around that are supporting them. But you could see at every time they are afraid, and they are doing everything to sabotage the process.
“We don’t have any issue. I mean, we’ve been told that, hey, go there you are just alone. You don’t have, you know, governors with you. And we say we have the Nigerian people, and you can see here, just within a few hours of what has happened, literally, the whole country is represented. People are coming from all over. So we don’t have an issue as a party.
“We are there doing what we are doing, which is focusing on engaging with citizens respectfully, the way any political party should. And we are not engaged in trying to undermine anyone. The question is, why are they afraid?
“INEC should be an institution that is supposed to be unbiased, but in every way, it’s almost as if it’s an arm of APC. And so why are you giving that kind of a judgment? The judgment never said you should remove the national chairman or the national secretary.
“It said you should go back to the status quo antebellum. That’s what it says. But I think, I do think that what Nigerians should be focused on is the fact that for those who say they have 30 something governors, for those who say they have kept money that they have not used in the last three years to develop our country, they have kept it, probably to use during the election, but they are still scared, and they are looking for whatever it is to destabilize parties.
“And then another thing also, it used to happen in the Labour Party. Why is it not happening in the Labour Party now? Obi is not there. It’s now ADC that they focus on. They know where their fears are.
“And when the message goes out, they will definitely hear from us loud and clear. Nigerians will hear from us loud and clear. The one thing I’m going to say to you is that we are not intimidated. We are not afraid. We are not thinking of, ah, you know, giving up, or whatever.
“And I’ve said this before, and I’m going to say it now again, Nigeria is at war going into 2027, it’s going to be a war, and we are fighting for our lives, and we are fighting for the soul of this nation. So giving up is not an option.
“INEC chairman, he should remember that before he became INEC Chairman, there was someone who was INEC chairman, and after he’s gone from that seat, there will be people that will be there. What will he be remembered for? This is someone who is a professor, not just a professor in any profession, but in law.
“So first of all, he should not be the one making up the law or reading the mind of what you know, the ruling of the court has said; if there’s something he doesn’t understand, he should go there. And we are hearing reports that he was threatened, you know, he was coerced into it.”
A former Minister of Youth and Sport, Solomon Dalung, had this to say: “The Court said the ADC should return to the status quo. What that means is that they should return to the position they were before coming to court.
“So I expect Joash Amupitan, a renowned scholar of law, and a Senior Advocate to have known the meaning of ante bellum but sadly, he has misinterpreted the decision of the Court of Appeal.
“Now the question is, can a court of law create constitutional anarchy? The answer is no. So why would a renowned professor of law and a law teacher like Amupitan behave like this?
“We understood the role dollars are playing in Nigerian democracy, and this has been replicated by the conduct of those that anytime they see their grandfather, they start singing ‘On your mandate we shall stand’. So INEC now is singing ‘on your dollar we shall stand.’
“How can you explain why a law professor who taught me status quo ante bellum when I was a law student and he told me that status quo means go back to the status you were before coming to court, and he has interpreted it differently. What would have changed his brain?
“The next step for ADC is to continue with their congresses and to tell Joash that he has lost his knowledge as a lawyer and interpret the law accordingly, because he asked us to go and kill ourselves. But we are saying that no, we will obey the court order on status quo and conduct our congresses.”
A former National Chairman of the ADC, Nwosu, who also spoke, said, “This is the biggest scandal I have seen as far as political party management is concerned. This is the worst since I’ve seen INEC.
2What INEC does is to work with party leaders to ensure that parties are healthy, but this INEC is being used to truncate the law to please the party in power. And for a SAN, for that matter, professionally, it’s a major disgrace.
“You should know the law, I think the INEC Chairman needs to be removed from that position immediately. Bala Nafiu resigned from the ADC and we have all the forensics.
“He resigned as deputy national chairman. I have the letter. INEC has the letter, and INEC was there the entire process. We held more than eight meetings. Bala was involved in all the meetings. And what beats my imagination was that Bala was the one going around the north to market the ADC.
“So for him to be doing what he’s doing, there must be something. We know that there are some billions of Naira there for the anti-coalition fight. This government doesn’t want to face any election. They want a coronation.
“So seeing it, I know what I went through before we were able to record this position. They followed me everywhere. But eventually we were able to do it, and they decided to start following some people they think they can get.
“I know some of these guys, most of them now live in some of the biggest hotels in the country. At times, they fly private jets. And I can tell you they fly private jet to Lagos, they fly private jets to Owerri. They stay in the biggest hotels. We know the governors who are funding them. We know all of these things.
“All our processes, we’re going to continue and finish them. Nobody can stop it. If they stop it, they’ll meet us. We sent them [INEC] a letter [concerning our congresses and convention] and they stamped it. And so whether they come with the dumpster, we are on the right path.
“We are on the right. INEC knows that they are wrong, so it’s now left to them to play whatever game they want to play. You know, when you’re right, you’re on a high moral ground and so on. We’re on the right.”
Also speaking, ADC Deputy National Chairman, Akwashiki Patricia, said, “The way forward is exactly what the national chairman said. You know, they are trying to instill fear in us and make people very disappointed.
“People who want to run on the party’s platform will be so distraught and not know what will happen if they continue with ADC. That is the main aim of all these things. They know they don’t have any case. INEC is just doing this to please APC,
“I think it is because of the stand of the ruling party. They don’t want anybody on the ballot with Bola Ahmed Tinubu. They really don’t want anybody. Everything that Wike is doing is tilting towards his own party.
“He might nominate, he might stand in that way, just to make sure that Bola Tinubu is alone on the ballot. That is what they are trying to do. I mean, how can somebody who claims to be a democrat be killing democracy in Nigeria?
“He’s really killing democracy in Nigeria, and it’s a pity. Yes, we really want to see a very strong opposition party. Government is nothing without opposition. Look everywhere in the world. Opposition makes them stand on their toes and do what is right for the people. At one point, we were in the ruling party. Now we are in opposition.
“There is nothing wrong with having a strong opposition that will push him to work harder. So what he is doing is really wrong. You know, trying to kill the opposition. So I am pleading with all Nigerians that they should stand up and fight for opposition, for democracy and for the life of Nigeria.
“We cannot allow almost, like 90% of us being ruled by and controlled by only, like 10% I’m just saying 10%, it is not really up to 10, like 1% of the people. It’s not good. It’s not right.”
Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress, APC, has denied having a hand in the crisis rocking the ADC.
APC, in a statement signed by Felix Morka, its National Publicity Secretary, described the ADC as an assembly of Nigeria’s most confused and desperate politicians and a peddler of rabid conspiracy theories.
“The ADC is a party that never was. By design, it was a kamikaze contraption with a ‘follow-come’ self-destructive detonator. It had to unravel and now unravel fast by installment,” the ruling party said.
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