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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.
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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.
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“The Presidency and the APC are not parties to the suit in court. It was David Mark who approached the Court of Appeal, and the court ruled that the status quo ante bellum should be maintained,” Basiru said. “One would expect any law-abiding organization to respect the order of the court.”
The Bala faction separately filed a formal complaint with the United States Embassy in Abuja, urging American diplomatic attention to what it described as the undemocratic hijacking of the party’s leadership by external political actors. Bala’s letter to the embassy described him as the sole NWC member who had not resigned and therefore the constitutional successor to the chairmanship. “I, Hon. Nafiu Bala Gombe, remained the sole and only National Deputy Chairman who did not resign. Therefore, by constitutional right and due process, the mantle of leadership fell on me to steer the affairs of the party,” the letter stated. The letter explicitly denied any affiliation with or support from President Tinubu or the APC.
The dispute has now produced competing legal positions across multiple simultaneous tracks. The Court of Appeal’s ruling struck out Mark’s procedural appeal but did not decide the underlying question of which leadership structure is legitimate — a matter that remains pending before Justice Nwite at the Federal High Court. That case has no confirmed hearing date. INEC has not publicly stated whether it will act on either Bala’s letter requesting recognition or Usman’s letter urging restraint.
INEC formally recognized the Mark-Aregbesola leadership arrangement in September 2025, following the NEC meeting of July 29 at which the commission had official observers present. Whether the commission now treats the Court of Appeal’s “maintain the status quo” directive as requiring it to freeze that recognition — as Bala argues — or as simply preserving the existing state of affairs pending trial court resolution — as Usman argues — will likely determine the next phase of the crisis. The Federal High Court’s substantive ruling, when issued, will be the definitive legal determination of which faction holds the party’s lawful leadership.
