The African Democratic Congress is sliding into full-scale collapse as a third bloc in Abuja rejects both the David Mark and Nafiu Bala camps, claims the party’s lawful mandate, and sharpens a legitimacy battle that INEC and the courts are now being forced to contain.
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has lurched into a far messier crisis after a third faction emerged in Abuja and openly rejected both the David Mark coalition and the Nafiu Bala camp, claiming instead to be the party’s legitimate National Executive Committee.
The new bloc, led by Don Norman Obinna, said it surfaced after an emergency NEC meeting and announced plans to steer the party towards a national convention and interim leadership structure.
What makes the latest revolt explosive is its total rejection of every other authority claim inside the party.
The Obinna group says Ralph Nwosu’s tenure ended in August 2022 and brands the handover to the Mark coalition an “illegal act”.
It also says Nafiu Bala never held the office of National Vice Chairman and insists that Dumebi Kachikwu remains a bona fide member of the ADC.
That is the heart of the storm. The party is no longer facing a two-way split but a three-cornered legitimacy war, with each camp accusing the others of impersonation, hijack and constitutional fraud.
The Obinna bloc is now saying, in effect, that neither Mark’s group nor Bala’s camp can speak for the ADC in any capacity, a position that deepens the internal fracture rather than healing it.
INEC has already turned the crisis into a formal electoral freeze. The commission says it will no longer recognise the David Mark-led structure, will not engage either warring faction, and will not monitor any meetings, congresses or conventions until the case is resolved by the Federal High Court.
It also said Mark’s name would be removed from its portal, after reviewing the Court of Appeal ruling that directed the parties to maintain the status quo.
That phrase, status quo ante bellum, has become the legal weapon around which the entire battle now turns.
INEC says it is merely obeying the court and preserving the last uncontested position until the substantive matter is settled.
The Mark camp, by contrast, has argued that the commission has crossed the line and that the move amounts to an attempt to cripple opposition politics ahead of 2027.
The crisis has also triggered a wider political backlash. The ADC itself has accused the APC-led federal government of trying to destabilise the party through pressure on INEC, while rival voices say the dispute is being manipulated to weaken the opposition at the moment it is trying to consolidate.
That claim has been amplified by fresh party activity, including warnings, counter-statements and competing legal arguments from both sides.
On the ground, the party is visibly splitting into camps that are each trying to dress themselves in the language of legitimacy.
Some state chairmen have backed the delisting of the Mark-led leadership and described the Kachikwu-aligned line as authentic, a development that suggests the crisis is no longer confined to Abuja press briefings but has spread into state structures as well.
The deeper danger for the ADC is strategic. The party had become a magnet for major opposition names and a possible vehicle for wider anti-APC realignment, but the leadership war is now threatening to convert that momentum into paralysis.
Reports in the national political press show that the party’s crisis is already reshaping conversations around Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rabiu Kwankwaso and other opposition heavyweights who were linked to the broader coalition project.
The practical consequence is stark. A party cannot sell itself as a national alternative while it is unable to produce one uncontested leadership, one recognised convention timetable and one lawful chain of authority.
Until the ADC resolves who owns its constitution, who can summon its meetings and who may lawfully speak in its name, the dispute will keep multiplying, with each faction issuing fresh claims and each court filing pushing the party closer to a full-blown collapse.
That is not just a party crisis anymore. It is a test of whether the ADC can survive its own ambition.
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