By Alex Ter Adum, PhD
The fundamental error in Lifu’s determination of the ADC leadership dispute lies in its failure to give adequate regard to, interpret and apply the relevant provisions of the ADC Constitution before arriving at its conclusions. A court determining the legality of an internal party transition cannot properly resolve the dispute by isolating constitutional and statutory provisions while disregarding the party’s internal constitution governing the offices, vacancies and succession in question.
Article 17(4) of the ADC Constitution provides a mechanism for filling vacancies in party offices. It empowers the appropriate Executive Committee to appoint a substitute from the zone of the former officeholder, pending an election at the next Congress or Convention. This provision is central to the controversy surrounding the emergence of the David Mark-led Interim National Working Committee (NWC).
The decisive question, therefore, was whether the transition under consideration constituted an election into substantive party offices or an interim appointment to fill vacancies under Article 17(4). The court ought to have determined that question by examining the facts, the character of the meeting, the existence of the vacancies, the authority of the appointing organ and the temporary nature of the appointments. It ought not to have proceeded as though every change in the composition of a party’s executive automatically amounted to an election.
Section 223(1)(a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, requires political parties to provide for periodic democratic elections of their principal officers and members of their executive committees or governing bodies. Similarly, section 82(3) of the Electoral Act 2022 regulates democratic elections into party executive positions, including elections to fill vacancies. These provisions must be interpreted alongside the ADC Constitution, not in isolation from it. Since the leadership change was an interim appointment under Article 17(4), the lower court was required to determine its legal character before applying provisions in the CFRN and the Electoral Act regulating elections.
Equally important is the lower court’s treatment of Nafiu Bala Gombe. His position as Deputy National Chairman (Government and Legislative Affairs) does not, without more, automatically confer the substantive office of National Chairman on him in the absence of the substantive National Chairman. Article 14(2)(i) addresses who presides at meetings in the absence of the National Chairman. A provision regulating the presiding officer at meetings cannot casually be transformed into an express constitutional provision transferring substantive ownership of the office. The relevant provisions of Articles 14, 17 and 18 dealing with presiding of meetings and the procedure for succession to a vacant executive office at all levels ought to have been read harmoniously to establish whether any constitutional instrument expressly elevated Bala to the substantive chairmanship. That conclusion cannot rest merely on his former designation.
Furthermore, the legal consequences of acts performed under David Mark’s publicly recognised leadership demanded separate and independent judicial examination. The doctrine of de facto officership, firmly recognised in Nigerian jurisprudence, distinguishes the validity of an officeholder’s title from the legal consequences of acts performed under colour of apparent or recognised authority. A position, which was not in doubt sequel to the Supreme Court decision of 30 April 2026.
In Marwa v. Nyako (2012) 6 NWLR (Pt. 1296) 199 (SC), the Supreme Court affirmed that the subsequent nullification of an election does not automatically invalidate official acts performed by an officeholder while exercising the functions of that office. Similarly, in Balonwu v. Governor of Anambra State (2009) 18 NWLR (Pt. 1172) 13 (SC), the Supreme Court examined the legal consequences of acts performed by a governor whose election was subsequently nullified. The same jurisprudential distinction is illustrated by the persuasive, though non-binding, decisions in Norton v. Shelby County (1886) 118 U.S. 425 and Ryder v. United States (1995) 515 U.S. 177 , which illuminate the distinction between the validity of an officeholder’s title and the legal consequences of acts undertaken in the exercise of apparent official authority. Although those foreign decisions arose in different constitutional settings, their underlying reasoning reinforces the necessity of examining institutional continuity, legal certainty, acquiescence and the protection of third-party reliance. Accordingly, the lower court ought to have examined whether the David Mark-led transition, the conduct of the relevant ADC constitutional organs and the subsequent exercise and recognition of leadership authority attracted the protection of the de facto doctrine. It was a material error to treat the challenge to the legitimacy of the leadership as automatically disposing of the distinct question of the validity and legal consequences of acts performed under that leadership.
Consequently, the subsequent determination of a leadership dispute should not, without further legal analysis, automatically invalidate every nomination, primary or administrative act undertaken during the period of apparent authority. Each act must be examined against the ADC Constitution, the Electoral Act, the reliefs sought and the circumstances of the persons affected. Sections 82 and 84 of the Electoral Act must also be applied according to their respective subject matters. In particular, section 82(5), which addresses the consequences of failure to give the notice required under section 82(1), should not be treated as a universal sanction for every alleged breach of section 82(3).
The lower court’s failure to undertake these essential constitutional and legal inquiries raises substantial questions about the correctness of its decision. The ADC Constitution is not decorative literature; it is the governing instrument that defines the powers, procedures and succession arrangements of the party. A judgment that fails to give those provisions their proper legal effect is vulnerable to appellate scrutiny.
Alex Ter Adum, PhD
