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The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has announced the commencement of the sale of Expression of Interest and Nomination Forms for its upcoming ward, local government, state congresses and national convention.
This was contained in a public notice issued from its national headquarters in Abuja and signed by Chinedu Idigo, the party’s National Organizing Secretary.
The party invited interested members seeking elective positions within its structure to obtain the necessary forms ahead of the exercises.
According to the notice, the Expression of Interest Form is priced at N2,000, while nomination fees vary depending on the position being contested.
At the ward level, chairmanship forms cost N10,000, secretary positions N5,000, and other offices N3,000 each.
For local government positions, aspirants for chairman are to pay N40,000, while secretaries will pay N30,000 and other officials N10,000 each.
At the state level, the chairmanship form is pegged at N500,000, the secretary position at N300,000, and other offices at N50,000 each.
The party also fixed the nomination fee for national convention delegates at N10,000 per aspirant, with each local government area entitled to one delegate.
ADC further stated that all aspirants must secure nominators, who are required to pay a non-refundable fee of N500 each.
The number of nominators varies by position, ranging from five for some ward offices to as many as 50 for the state chairmanship position, with geographical spread requirements in certain cases.
“All payments, including Expression of Interest, Nomination, Nominators’ fees, and outstanding membership dues, must be made via bank transfer to the party’s designated account,” the notice stated, adding that proof of payment must be presented during form collection.
Forms are to be obtained from the party’s national secretariat or state offices through designated representatives.
The party fixed March 27, 2026, as the deadline for the sale and submission of forms, warning that late submissions will not be accepted.
Screening of aspirants is scheduled to hold between March 30 and March 31, 2026.
A long-running internal struggle for control of the African Democratic Congress has entered a new and more volatile phase after the Court of Appeal dismissed a procedural challenge filed by former Senate President David Mark and ruled his appeal incompetent — a legal setback that his rival Nafiu Bala Gombe has immediately exploited by writing to the Independent National Electoral Commission, demanding that it strip Mark and former Minister Rauf Aregbesola of recognition as the party’s national chairman and secretary respectively.
In a letter to INEC dated March 16 and written by his senior advocate Robert Emukpoeruo, Bala cited the Court of Appeal’s directive to “maintain the status quo” as grounds for the commission to stop recognizing the Mark-Aregbesola leadership and instead acknowledge his own claim to the chairmanship. Bala, who served as the ADC’s deputy national chairman, has maintained throughout the dispute that the party’s own constitution required him to assume the chairmanship automatically after the resignation of former chairman Ralph Okey Nwosu and the simultaneous departure of other members of the National Working Committee. He argues that as the only NWC member who did not resign at that juncture, the constitutional succession fell to him by default.
The Court of Appeal ruling that triggered Bala’s latest maneuver arose from a challenge filed by Mark against a September 2025 ruling by Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja.
Justice Nwite had declined to grant an ex parte application filed by Bala seeking an immediate order directing INEC to withdraw recognition of the Mark-Aregbesola leadership, instead directing both men to show cause why such relief should not be granted — a procedural instruction rather than a substantive ruling on the merits of the dispute. Mark filed his notice of appeal on September 18, 2025, challenging the ruling on multiple grounds including an alleged lack of jurisdiction. But in its ruling this week, the three-member appellate panel led by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam upheld a preliminary objection to the appeal’s competence, finding that the appeal challenged matters the trial court had not in fact decided and that Mark had failed to obtain the leave of court required to challenge an interlocutory direction.
Responding to Bala’s letter to INEC, a separate senior advocate, Dr. Sulaimon Usman of Gamzaki Law Chambers in Abuja, wrote to the commission on the same date urging it to take no action in favor of either claimant pending final resolution of the substantive suit before the Federal High Court.
“In the present circumstances, it would be consistent with the principles of constitutional order, judicial comity, and sound administrative prudence for the commission to refrain from recognizing or acting upon any representation seeking to install or recognize any person as Acting National Chairman of the party pending the determination of the suit,” Usman wrote. The letter argued that the leadership structure currently in place — the Mark-Aregbesola arrangement that emerged from an NEC meeting monitored by INEC officials in July 2025 and formally recognized by the commission in September — remained the legally subsisting structure until the Federal High Court resolved the underlying suit.
Read Also: ADC Release 2026 Nationwide Congress, Convention Timetable
The ADC under Mark and Aregbesola has not confined itself to legal arguments. The party issued a statement on March 15 describing what it characterized as an organized external plot to destabilize the opposition ahead of the 2027 general elections. The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, claimed that unnamed powerful figures within the ruling All Progressives Congress were pressuring INEC to recognize Bala as chairman — an allegation he said was being driven by “an APC governor in collaboration with a senior security official based in Abuja.”
The ADC further alleged that the broader objective was to lock prominent opposition figures inside a weakened or captured ADC structure and then announce the party’s deregistration close to the 2027 election cycle, preventing those figures from transferring to other parties in time.
“Tinubu does not want to run against anybody,” an ADC spokesperson was quoted as saying. “He is afraid of contesting the election against individuals like Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rotimi Amaechi and other credible opposition figures.”
The APC rejected those characterizations with comparable force. APC National Secretary Ajibola Basiru described the allegations as “wild and baseless,” insisting that neither the Presidency nor the ruling party had any involvement in the ADC’s internal dispute.
