The African Democratic Congress (ADC) is trying to settle a leadership dispute with the presidential election barely ten weeks away.
Its latest appeal turns on a narrow legal question that could decide whether Atiku Abubakar appears on the ballot: will the Court of Appeal suspend Justice Peter Lifu’s November 5 judgment before the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) acts on it?
The ADC has filed a notice of appeal and an application for a stay of execution. Until that application is decided, the judgment stands.
The party’s request that INEC “exercise restraint” is therefore a plea for goodwill, not a legal shield. The party’s lawyers wrote to the INEC chairman on November 6, but the letter does not bind the commission.
The judgment matters beyond party offices because it nullified the Mark-led caretaker committee and its decisions.
Those decisions include the process that produced Atiku as the ADC’s presidential candidate. If the leadership that ran the primary is void, the candidate’s standing is open to challenge.
This is also not the first time the leadership question has reached the courts. Earlier this year, the Court of Appeal delivered a March 12 ruling that nullified David Mark’s leadership.
Reports at the time said INEC withheld recognition of either faction pending court resolution of the leadership tussle.
In July, the appellate court upheld a judgment barring INEC from recognising congresses held under the Mark-led leadership.
The latest ruling is the newest in a run of decisions that have repeatedly put the party’s leadership in doubt.
The ADC has found some relief in court before. In June, the Court of Appeal granted a stay of execution of a judgment that would have deregistered the party, which let it keep its registration.
Atiku noted then that INEC itself had initiated the application for the stay.
That case was separate from the present dispute, but it suggests the commission has not always been the ADC’s adversary. Whether INEC would hold back again this time is the central unanswered question.
The party’s public posture, meanwhile, is defiance. Spokesman Phrank Shaibu says campaigns will continue “without interruption,” and Atiku’s camp had earlier said it would pursue a stay and an appeal while it kept campaigning.
The approach carries political logic. Visible momentum can reassure supporters and donors while the lawyers work. It also carries risk. If the stay is refused or delayed, the campaign could be left acting on authority a court has already declared void.
INEC faces its own difficulty. The commission has said it is nine milestones into a 14-step timetable, and the presidential and National Assembly polls are fixed for January 16, 2027.
Acting on the judgment too fast could invite accusations that it pre-empted the Court of Appeal. Waiting too long could leave the commission holding disputed candidate nominations close to election day.
Either path draws scrutiny at a time when the commission is stressing neutrality and transparency to the public.
The ADC’s critics may read the case differently. The suit that led to the judgment came from Nafiu Bala Gombe, a former ADC National Deputy Chairman for the North-East.
He argues that he was constitutionally entitled to lead the party after Ralph Nwosu resigned.
For those who share his view, the court is enforcing the party’s own rules, not interfering in politics.
The ADC’s leaders counter that the ruling is an attempt to cripple the opposition, as National Publicity Secretary Bolaji Abdullahi put it.
What happens next depends on speed. A quick ruling on the stay could settle the immediate uncertainty.
A slow one would leave the presidential ticket of a leading opposition party in limbo for weeks, as the candidate lists, ballots and campaigns all move forward.
