I have read again Okoi Obono-Obla’s second article on the ADC leadership dispute, and I consider it an elaborate but fundamentally misleading attempt to portray Senator David Mark’s alleged failure to tender certain documents at trial as an insurmountable legal obstacle on appeal. The central weakness in this argument is its suggestion that whatever a trial court has decided must remain undisturbed simply because a party did not tender additional documents. That is not the law. The Court of Appeal is not a sanctuary for erroneous findings, nor is a trial judgment an untouchable judicial monument. Its constitutional duty is to examine the record, identify errors of law or fact, and correct them where the interests of justice demand.
The distinction Obono-Obla appears unwilling to acknowledge is the distinction between introducing fresh evidence on appeal and challenging the legal correctness of findings already made on the evidence before the trial court. Senator Mark does not necessarily have to introduce new documents to demonstrate that the trial judge misapplied the law, misunderstood the evidence, ignored material facts, or reached conclusions that are unsupported by the record. Under Section 240 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended, the Court of Appeal has jurisdiction to hear and determine appeals from the Federal High Court. That jurisdiction is not ceremonial. It exists precisely because trial courts, like all human institutions, can err.
An appellate court will ordinarily accord due respect to findings of fact made by a trial court, particularly where those findings depend on the assessment of witnesses. But that deference is not absolute. Where the findings are perverse, unsupported by the evidence, inconsistent with established facts, or founded on a wrong application of the law, the appellate court is entitled to intervene. The question is not whether a party can produce a fresh document to replace every document allegedly omitted at trial; it is whether the decision under appeal can withstand scrutiny on the evidence and law already before the court.
The rules governing fresh evidence on appeal must not be confused with the appellate court’s power to review the record. Order 4 Rule 2 of the Court of Appeal Rules 2021 regulates the reception of additional evidence in appropriate circumstances. It does not prohibit the Court of Appeal from evaluating the evidence already admitted, correcting legal misdirections, or setting aside findings that cannot reasonably be sustained. Obono-Obla’s argument collapses these distinct principles into one, thereby creating a procedural obstacle that the law itself does not impose.
The same overstatement runs through his insistence that the absence of a membership card, Ward register or payment receipt necessarily establishes that Mark was not a member of the ADC. That is an unduly restrictive approach to the law of evidence. Sections 131–136 of the Evidence Act 2011 deal with the burden and standard of proof; they do not prescribe that membership of a political party can only be established by one particular document, irrespective of other admissible evidence. The court must examine the totality of the evidence, including the conduct of the parties, the decisions of the competent organs of the party, the circumstances of admission and any formal recognition of membership.
More importantly, the argument ignores the party’s own decisions concerning the admission and eligibility of coalition members. On 2 July 2025, Chief Ralph Okey Nwosu, then former National Chairman of the ADC, formally presented the party’s membership card to Senator David Mark at the public event at the Yar Adua Center Abuja, where Mark was announced as the would be interim National Chairman after the 29 July 2025 NEC ratification. That was not an act performed by a stranger to the party or an unauthorised political interloper. It was a formal act of the then party leadership. Channels Television reported the presentation of the membership cards to Mark and Rauf Aregbesola on that date.
There is an additional constitutional fact that Obono-Obla’s argument cannot simply wish away. At the ADC’s 97th National Executive Committee meeting held on 27 March 2025, the party reportedly resolved to waive the two-year membership eligibility provisions contained in Articles 9.3(1), 9.3(2), 9.3(3) and 9.4(1) of the applicable party constitution, which restricted the eligibility of new members to hold party positions or contest elections. The resolution was reportedly moved by the then National Legal Adviser, passed by the NEC, observed by INEC officials and communicated to the Commission on 3 April 2025, with acknowledgement on 4 April 2025. The distinction is important: this was the 97th NEC. The 98th NEC meeting of 15 May 2025 also dealt with matters, including the suspension of Article 23(4) and the reaffirmation of the mandate given to the National Chairman and NWC to engage coalition stakeholders and finalize all articles of agreement for the adoption of ADC as the official coalition platform.
The legal significance is straightforward. If the competent organ of the party validly exercised its constitutional authority to waive the two-year eligibility restriction for incoming coalition members, that restriction cannot subsequently be deployed as though the waiver never existed. Mark’s formal admission and presentation with a membership card must be considered alongside the NEC resolution and the circumstances in which the party received the coalition. The waiver, is not been exaggerated into an automatic removal of every post membership-admission requirements under the Constitution; but neither can it be ignored when determining whether the two-year eligibility rule disqualified Mark from participating in the party’s leadership arrangements.
One cannot invoke a constitutional requirement while suppressing a validly adopted constitutional waiver of that very requirement. That is not fidelity to a party constitution; it is selective reliance on its provisions to manufacture a disqualification which the party’s competent organ had resolved to remove. The proper judicial question is whether the waiver was validly adopted, whether it covered the relevant coalition members and whether it applied to the circumstances of Mark’s admission. Those questions must be answered from the applicable constitution, the NEC resolution and the evidence—not by treating the absence of one particular receipt or register entry as conclusive proof of non-membership.
The fact that the party’s constitution may prescribe procedures for membership registration does not mean that every other form of admissible evidence becomes legally irrelevant. Nor does it permit a court to disregard formal recognition by the party leadership, a membership card issued by the party, or a duly adopted resolution addressing eligibility. The evidential value of each item must be assessed in context. The court must not substitute a rigid documentary checklist for the statutory duty to evaluate the totality of the evidence.
Another weakness in Obono-Obla’s reasoning concerns the significance of Nafiu Bala Gombe’s conduct at the material meetings. If, as the evidence before the court is said to show, Bala was present when the outgoing National Chairman announced the transition, participated in the relevant deliberations, applauded the proposed arrangement and raised no objection at the time, those circumstances are not legally meaningless. They are materially relevant to acquiescence, acceptance by conduct, waiver and estoppel, depending on the precise facts established by the record. A litigant cannot always approbate and reprobate—accept an arrangement when it suits him and later repudiate the same arrangement when political circumstances change.
The principle of estoppel is not a decorative phrase to be invoked casually; it is a substantive rule designed to prevent a party from asserting a position inconsistent with one he previously adopted, where the legal requirements for its application are satisfied. In Fadiora v. Gbadebo (1978) 3 SC 219 , the Supreme Court considered the doctrine of estoppel per rem judicatam and the importance of finality in litigation. The broader point is that the court must examine the parties’ previous positions, conduct and the legal consequences that may flow from them. Bala’s participation and conduct, as established by the record, deserve judicial evaluation rather than convenient dismissal.
The argument surrounding the earlier proceedings before Justice Liman also requires a more disciplined analysis. The mere fact that two cases concern the ADC leadership crisis does not automatically make their causes of action, issues for determination, parties or reliefs identical. Equally, it does not mean that a subsequent court is free to disregard a prior judgment where the requirements of issue estoppel or res judicata are established. The relevant inquiry is whether the issue was directly and substantially in dispute, whether it was finally determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, and whether the parties or their privies satisfy the applicable legal requirements. The doctrine cannot be applied by slogans; neither can it be avoided by simply changing the language of a claim.
The relationship between Leke Abejide and Nafiu Bala Gombe, and the question whether one was a privy of the other for the purpose of the earlier proceedings, must therefore be examined against the pleadings, parties, issues and actual decision in the Liman case. If the necessary identity and privity are established, the legal consequences of the earlier judgment cannot be brushed aside. If they are not, the mere similarity of subject matter will not manufacture an estoppel. That is the proper legal analysis, not the simplistic assertion that Justice Lifu was automatically bound, or automatically free, without examining the precise issues and parties before both courts.
There is also the question of INEC’s role under Section 82(3) of the Electoral Act 2022. The statutory requirement for notice and the Commission’s monitoring of party activities must be considered in their proper legal context. INEC’s presence or acknowledgement of a communication does not, by itself, prove that every internal party decision was validly taken. But neither should evidence of notice, monitoring and communication be treated as irrelevant. The court must determine what the statute requires, what was done, what the documentary record establishes and whether any alleged procedural defect was proved. The law demands evidence-based conclusions, not assumptions constructed to favour one faction.
On the disputed signature and the allegation surrounding Exhibit ADC-1, the same evidential discipline applies. Section 168 of the Evidence Act 2011 provides for certain presumptions of regularity, including in relation to official acts, where the statutory conditions are met. The presumption is rebuttable; it is not a licence to authenticate every disputed document without scrutiny. But where a document emanates from an official party process and it is certified by the electoral management body as a certified true copy, its provenance, custody, execution and surrounding circumstances must be evaluated before a court rejects it. A bare denial is relevant, but it does not automatically extinguish every evidential consideration surrounding the document. The court must determine the evidential effect of the denial, the burden of proof, the surrounding circumstances and any corroborative material on the record to prove it is not true.
Ultimately, Obono-Obla’s article places excessive emphasis on what Mark allegedly failed to tender and insufficient emphasis on what the trial court was required to evaluate. It treats the absence of supposedly selected documents as though it were conclusive, while overlooking the legal relevance of party resolutions, formal acts of party leadership, membership recognition, conduct of the parties, statutory notices and the possibility of error in the trial court’s evaluation of evidence. That is not a balanced account of appellate law.
The Court of Appeal is not being asked to conduct a political popularity contest. It is being asked to determine whether the decision under appeal is legally sustainable. It must examine the record, the applicable provisions of the ADC Constitution, the Electoral Act, the Evidence Act and the binding authorities of the superior courts. If the trial court failed to consider material evidence, applied the wrong legal test, misunderstood the effect of a constitutional waiver or reached findings unsupported by the record, the appellate court has both the jurisdiction and the duty to correct the error.
The real issue, therefore, is not whether Senator David Mark can now produce every document Obono-Obla says was missing at trial. The real issue is whether the judgment can survive a proper appellate examination of the evidence and the law. No amount of elaborate advocacy can convert an erroneous finding into an infallible one, and no trial judgment is insulated from correction merely because counsel can construct a lengthy argument around documents allegedly not tendered.
The appellate court must decide the matter according to law, not according to the confidence with which one side presents its narrative. That is the essence of appellate justice.
Alex Ter Adum, PhD
DDG THE NARRATIVE FORCE
