Court voids Atiku's ADC candidacy and sacks Mark-led leadership

A Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday voided the African Democratic Congress leadership under David Mark and annulled Atiku Abubakar's nomination as its 2027 presidential candidate, citing breaches of the law.

Justice Peter Lifu declared the Mark-led Caretaker Committee illegal and nullified the process through which it ran the party's presidential primary.

He also set aside the emergence of former Interior Minister Rauf Aregbesola as national secretary, the appointments of other national officers and the nominations of candidates the party presented for the 2027 elections.

The court further ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to recognise or act on decisions taken at the party's 99th National Executive Committee meeting on 27 July 2025.

The ADC rejected the ruling as a politically motivated attempt to weaken the opposition.

"We have seen this script before. When they are scared that the opposition is gathering steam, they use their judges in the courts to influence legally indefensible judgments," party spokesperson Bolaji Abdullahi said in a statement.

The judgment arrived barely 24 hours after Atiku, whose name INEC had earlier published as a presidential candidate, opened his campaign with a rally in Sokoto State.

Nafiu Bala Gombe, a former ADC Deputy National Chairman for the North-East, brought the suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1819/2025, to challenge how Mark and other caretaker committee members took control of the party.

The ADC, INEC, Mark, Aregbesola and former National Chairman Ralph Nwosu were listed as defendants.

Gombe argued that he was constitutionally entitled to lead the party after Nwosu resigned, and that its officials had not been elected through a national convention. He asked the court to restrain Mark and Aregbesola from presenting themselves as national chairman and national secretary.

Upholding his case, Lifu held that the emergence of the Mark-led leadership violated the ADC constitution, relevant provisions of the Electoral Act and the 1999 Constitution.

Lukman Fagbemi (SAN), counsel for Gombe, told journalists after the judgment that the court "finds as a fact that they did not emerge through lawful constitutional means and that there were flagrant breaches of all the relevant provisions that we have stated."

Fagbemi added, "All the actions taken by the ADC as a party since July 27 to date stand annulled."

Luka Musa Haruna (SAN), another lawyer for Gombe, told reporters, "You will recall that the interlocutory aspect of this matter went up to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said we should come back to the trial court so that the substantive issue would be determined."

He then set out what the outcome means for the party. "As it stands today, the ADC has no candidate from the presidential level to the House of Assembly, governorship, Senate and all other elective positions for the 2027 election."

The dispute traces to 2 July 2025, when Atiku and Mark joined former governors Rotimi Amaechi, Peter Obi, Aregbesola, Aminu Tambuwal, Nasiru El-Rufai and Gabriel Suswam to announce the ADC as the vehicle for a coalition against President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress.

At that event Nwosu said he and his executive had agreed to resign voluntarily to make way for new leadership, and Mark and Aregbesola were named chairman and secretary.

Weeks later Gombe declared that he would not resign his position or accept the arrangement. INEC said it would stop recognising Mark and Aregbesola while the leadership case was pending, prompting a protest by party figures at its Abuja headquarters, and it later restored their names on its portal after a Supreme Court judgment on the matter.

Atiku, vice president from 1999 to 2007 and runner-up at the last election, won the ADC ticket in May in what would have been his seventh presidential bid. He named Amaechi, a former Rivers State governor and former Transport Minister, as his running mate.

Obi, who finished third at the last election, left the ADC before the primary and took the presidential ticket of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, with former Kano State governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso as his running mate.

The ruling comes days after Tinubu formally launched his re-election campaign in Kaduna, where he sought to persuade voters that painful economic reforms were beginning to yield results despite a persistent cost-of-living crisis. Nigeria has seen an incumbent president lose only once, in 2015, when Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat to the late Muhammadu Buhari after an opposition merger.

National Welfare Secretary Nkemakolam Ukandu, who was joined in the suit as an interested party, reportedly said the ADC would appeal, and the party itself has named the Court of Appeal as its next destination.