By Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
The man at the centre of the ADC leadership crisis has no constitutional basis for his claim, no party process behind his declaration, and no locus standi before any court. The Nigerian public deserves to know this in plain language.
“Nobody made him chairman. No NEC meeting ratified him. No Executive Committee appointed him. No party congress endorsed him. He walked to a press briefing, declared himself chairman, and called on INEC to recognise the declaration. That is not constitutional succession. That is political theatre.”
Ask the question nobody is asking loudly enough
In all the coverage of the ADC leadership crisis, in all the legal analysis, the INEC press releases, the court processes, and the political commentary, one fundamental question has not been asked with sufficient force.
Who made the former Deputy National Chairman the National Chairman of the African Democratic Congress?
Not who does he claim made him chairman. Not which provision of the constitution he says entitles him to the position. Who actually made him chairman? What party organ sat down, deliberated, and formally conferred that office on him? What meeting did it happen in? What date? What resolution number? Who signed the documentation? Who witnessed it?
The answer to every one of those questions is the same. Nobody. Nothing. No meeting. No date. No resolution. No documentation. No witnesses.
The man now claiming the ADC chairmanship became, in his own account, the National Chairman of the African Democratic Congress at a press briefing in Abuja. He walked to a microphone, told journalists he was assuming the chairmanship, and asked INEC to recognise him. That is the entirety of the process that produced his claim.
The Nigerian legal system, the Nigerian Constitution, the ADC party constitution, and every established principle of democratic party governance require considerably more than a press briefing to confer the leadership of a national political party on any individual. And the Federal High Court must be pressed to say so clearly, firmly, and finally.
“A press statement is not a party election. A press briefing is not a NEC resolution. A declaration before journalists is not the constitutional process by which the leadership of a political party is determined.”
Three reasons Nafiu Bala has no locus standi
Reason One: He apparently resigned before he could succeed
The David Mark faction has placed on the public record a resignation letter dated 17th May 2025, in which Nafiu Bala informed the ADC party leadership of his decision to step down from the National Working Committee with effect from 26th May 2025. The letter states explicitly that his resignation was made to facilitate a smooth and effective coalition and restructuring.
That resignation was transmitted to INEC on 12th August 2025. INEC received it. INEC has publicly acknowledged receiving it. The INEC Chairman himself referenced it in a television interview, noting that the Commission had a record of a letter from the ADC informing it that the former Deputy National Chairman had resigned.
Nafiu Bala filed his suit on 2nd September 2025, four clear months after that resignation letter was dated, and three weeks after it was transmitted to INEC.
The legal consequence is straightforward. A man who has already vacated an office cannot claim automatic succession to a higher office from that same office. You cannot succeed from a position you have already resigned. The succession right, if it ever existed, died with the resignation. And if the resignation is valid, the suit itself has no foundation.
Nafiu Bala claims the signature on the resignation letter is forged. That claim is before the Federal High Court. But the Nigerian public must understand what it means for Nafiu Bala to be asking the court to accept that his own party forged his signature on a letter in order to justify a leadership transition that then produced a new NWC ratified by the party’s NEC. That is not a modest allegation. It is an allegation that implicates the integrity of the entire ADC party administration and everyone associated with the 29th July 2025 NEC meeting. The court will weigh it accordingly.
Reason Two: The NWC he belonged to was dissolved before the suit was filed
Even if the resignation letter is accepted as forged, a separate and equally fatal problem confronts the locus standi of this suit.
The National Working Committee of which Nafiu Bala was Deputy National Chairman was collectively dissolved when the entire executive under Ralph Okey Nwosu resigned on 29th July 2025. The NEC then ratified a new NWC led by David Mark on the same day.
When a corporate body is dissolved and replaced, the titles of its individual members are extinguished along with it. The title of Deputy National Chairman of the Ralph Nwosu NWC ceased to exist the moment that NWC was dissolved. There was no longer a Deputy National Chairmanship of that NWC for anyone to hold, resigned or otherwise.
The suit was filed on 2nd September 2025 claiming rights that derived from an office that had not existed for over a month. The ADC’s own National Publicity Secretary Bolaji Abdullahi made this point publicly and precisely: Nafiu Bala’s tenure ended following his resignation and the dissolution of the executive committee he belonged to. He has no locus.
Reason Three: The ADC constitution does not grant automatic succession
Nafiu Bala’s entire legal case rests on a constitutional argument: that when the National Chairman resigns, the Deputy National Chairman automatically assumes the chairmanship. He has said this publicly and repeatedly. His lawyers have put it before the courts.
But the ADC constitution does not say this. What it says, in plain language, is this: Should a vacancy occur in any of the Party offices, the appropriate Executive Committee shall appoint a substitute from the zone where the former office holder comes pending the conduct of election.
That is the specific vacancy provision in the written constitution. It does not create automatic succession. It vests the power of appointment in the appropriate Executive Committee. The NEC exercised exactly that power on 29th July 2025 when it appointed David Mark as National Chairman.
Nafiu Bala’s claim of automatic constitutional succession is therefore contradicted by the very document he is invoking. The constitution he says supports him actually supports David Mark. The process the constitution requires, an Executive Committee appointment, is the process that produced the Mark leadership, not the process that produced Nafiu Bala’s press briefing declaration.
“The constitution says the Executive Committee appoints. The Executive Committee met and appointed. Nafiu Bala says the Deputy Chairman succeeds automatically. The constitution says no such thing. The Federal High Court needs to be presented this contradiction directly, clearly, and without delay.”
INEC knew about the resignation and acted anyway.
One of the most troubling aspects of this entire episode is what INEC knew and when it knew it.
INEC received the ADC’s notification of the resignation on 12th August 2025. That is documented. INEC received the ADC’s notification of the new David Mark leadership on 4th September 2025. INEC processed the upload of the Mark leadership on 9th September 2025.
At the time INEC processed that upload, it had already been notified of the resignation. It knew, before it ever uploaded the David Mark NWC, that the man claiming succession rights had sent a resignation letter to the party. It uploaded the Mark leadership anyway, which is the correct thing to have done, because the NEC decision of 29th July was a valid party act.
Then, after the Court of Appeal issued its preservatory order, INEC reversed course and removed the David Mark leadership from its portal, citing a seven-day administrative gap as justification. In doing so, it effectively ignored its own prior knowledge of the resignation letter that undercuts the entire succession claim.
This is the question the ADC’s legal team must put squarely to the Federal High Court. How can INEC’s status quo ante reasoning be applied in Nafiu Bala’s favour when INEC itself was in possession of evidence, the resignation letter, that destroys the constitutional foundation of the claim before the status quo ante was ever defined?
“INEC knew the former Deputy Chairman had resigned before it uploaded the David Mark leadership. That knowledge does not disappear because a court order arrived later. The Federal High Court must account for it.”
INEC monitored the entire process that produced David Mark. Is it now saying it saw nothing?
There is one more question that deserves a direct answer from INEC.
Every step of the transition that produced David Mark’s leadership was conducted in the open and under INEC’s own observation. The ADC wrote to INEC requesting that it note the new principal officers. INEC received that letter on 4th September 2025. INEC approved the upload on 9th September 2025. INEC placed the Mark leadership on its portal. INEC subsequently invited the David Mark group to a political parties’ meeting on 24th March 2026. INEC monitored the NEC meeting convened by the David Mark group on 25th March 2026.
INEC was present. INEC participated. INEC recognised, engaged with, and formally processed every act of the David Mark leadership from its inception.
Now INEC says the status quo ante requires it to pretend none of that happened.
Is INEC saying its own participation in these events was invalid? Is it saying that the NEC of the ADC did not have the authority to dissolve its own executive and install a new one? Is it saying that a party’s highest governing body, short of its convention, cannot make binding decisions about its own internal leadership? If so, INEC needs to say that explicitly. Because that position would mean that every internal leadership transition in every political party in Nigeria is potentially subject to reversal by any disgruntled former official who refuses to accept the decision of the party’s own governing organs.
That cannot be the law. INEC’s selective amnesia about its own prior conduct in this matter must be confronted directly at the Federal High Court.
The Supreme Court has spoken. Why is it being ignored?
Nigeria’s Supreme Court has settled, in a long line of decisions, one constitutional principle that is directly applicable to this dispute. The internal affairs of a political party are non-justiciable. The doctrine of forum domesticum holds that courts have no business compelling a political organisation to accept a leader it has democratically rejected through its own constitutional processes. The Supreme Court has said this. It has said it repeatedly. It has said it in judgments binding on every lower court in Nigeria, including the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal.
So the question must be asked plainly. Why is that principle being selectively applied? Why is a court entertaining a suit that asks it to override the decision of the ADC’s own National Executive Committee, the party’s highest governing body short of its convention, on the question of who leads the party?
The ADC’s NEC made a decision. That decision is the internal affair of the ADC. No court order should reach into it. No INEC administrative decision should reverse it. The Supreme Court has said so. And those who are selectively invoking procedural technicalities while ignoring this settled constitutional principle owe the Nigerian public an explanation.
The masquerade and the men behind the mask
Let no one be deceived about what this litigation is and who benefits from it.
Nafiu Bala is not fighting for the ADC constitution. A man fighting for the ADC constitution would have sought a court declaration of who leads the party and nothing more. He would not have filed a motion on 15th September 2025 to prevent the ADC from holding any convention, any congress, any conference, or any meeting of any kind. He would not have returned to court on 15th December 2025 with a second identical motion.
A man who genuinely believes he is the rightful chairman wants the court to say so. He does not want the party to stop existing while the court decides.
The motions to freeze all ADC activity were not designed to protect a constitutional principle. They were designed to ensure that even if Nafiu Bala lost the chairmanship case, the ADC would arrive at 2027 organisationally hollow, structurally unprepared, and incapable of fielding a presidential candidate. That objective serves one political interest above all others. It is not Nafiu Bala’s interest. It is the interest of the All Progressives Congress.
The APC did not file this case. They are too sophisticated for that level of exposure. What they did was identify a grievance inside the ADC, activate it, provide or facilitate the legal and financial resources to pursue it beyond anything a personal constitutional dispute would warrant, and allow an ADC member’s hand to deliver the blow that the APC could not deliver openly without consequences.
The level of strategic precision embedded in these court processes, the knowledge of Nigerian electoral law, the understanding of INEC’s timetable, the targeting of the congress and convention windows that the coalition needs, does not emerge from one man’s personal grievance. It emerges from a deliberate, externally directed political operation.
Nafiu Bala is the mask. The APC is the masquerade behind it. And the Federal High Court is the arena in which both must be unmasked.
The trap they are building and how it works
Let us be precise about the endgame of what Tinubu, INEC, and the elements using saboteurs inside the ADC are actually trying to accomplish. It is not as simple as stopping the ADC from having a chairman. It is more calculated and more cynical than that.
Stage One is what we are watching now. Disorganise the party. Use the litigation to freeze congresses, conventions, and all internal processes. Keep the leadership in legal limbo. Ensure the ADC cannot formalise its structures at ward, state, and national level within the INEC timetable.
Stage Two follows. When the INEC timetable for party congresses and presidential primaries arrives and passes without the ADC being able to hold its processes, INEC will cite the court proceedings as the reason it cannot engage. The party will miss the window. The candidate cannot be formally nominated.
Stage Three is the masterstroke. Having deliberately caused the delay, having deliberately frozen the party’s organisational activity through proxy litigation, having deliberately used INEC’s posture of non-engagement to run out the electoral clock, the ruling party and its allies will turn around and blame the ADC and the courts for the disadvantage. They will say the ADC had internal problems. They will say the courts were just following legal processes. They will say INEC was just respecting judicial orders. They will say the opposition failed to organise itself in time. They will present themselves as innocent bystanders while the party they deliberately sabotaged struggles to present a presidential candidate.
That is the trap. It uses legitimate institutions, courts, INEC, and constitutional language, as the instruments of an illegitimate political objective. It is designed to be deniable at every step.
The ADC must understand this trap, name it publicly, and defeat it on every front simultaneously. The legal defence must be urgent. The congress processes must proceed on the basis that the ADC’s constitutional right to organise has not been lawfully suspended by any court order. The narrative must expose the trap before it closes. And the Federal High Court must be moved to deliver judgment before the INEC timetable windows arrive.
What must happen at the Federal High Court.
The David Mark faction’s legal team must press the locus standi challenge first and without compromise. Before any argument about the merits of the succession dispute, before any examination of the NEC decision of 29th July, before any discussion of the status quo ante, the court must determine whether Nafiu Bala had the legal capacity to institute this suit at all.
If he resigned in May 2025, he had no office from which to claim succession rights in September 2025. The suit must be struck out.
If his NWC was dissolved in July 2025, the title he is asserting succession from had ceased to exist before he filed. The suit must be struck out.
If the constitution’s vacancy provision vests appointment power in the Executive Committee rather than creating automatic succession, no succession right ever arose. The suit must be struck out.
Any one of these three grounds is sufficient. All three together constitute an airtight case for the suit’s dismissal at the threshold, before the Federal High Court ever reaches the question of who leads the ADC.
To the Nigerian public watching this unfold.
The question is simple. Who made Nafiu Bala chairman?
No ADC NEC meeting made him chairman. No ADC Executive Committee appointed him. No ADC congress or convention ratified him. No election produced him. No documented party process of any kind conferred the chairmanship on him.
He declared himself chairman at a press briefing. He called on INEC to recognise him. And when INEC declined, he went to court.
That is not how political parties are led in a constitutional democracy. That is not how leadership transitions are managed under the rule of law. And it is not, as the ADC’s constitution makes clear, how vacancies in party offices are filled.
The party that made David Mark chairman is the ADC itself, through its National Executive Committee, through a meeting held on 29th July 2025, ratified by the party’s sovereign body, communicated to INEC, and processed by INEC before any suit existed.
That is the leadership the Federal High Court will be asked to confirm. That is the leadership the Nigerian public should understand is the legitimate, constitutionally grounded, democratically produced leadership of the African Democratic Congress.
And those who sent a proxy to dismantle it will answer for it when the court speaks, when the congress holds, when the candidate emerges, and when the Nigerian people vote.
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B is the Director General, The Narrative Force
thenarrativeforce.org
