Court Halts INEC Over ADC Congresses, Bars David Mark’s Camp

2027 Election Watch, Breaking News, Legal, Politics

Court Halts INEC Over ADC Congresses, Bars David Mark’s Camp

Abuja’s latest ADC ruling has turned an internal party squabble into a full-blown legal siege, with Justice Joyce Abdulmalik slamming the brakes on a caretaker-led congress plan and tightening the noose around the David Mark faction’s grip on state structures.

Atlantic Post

April 29, 2026

3–5 minutes

ADC, David Mark, Federal High Court, INEC, internal democracy, Nigerian Politics

The Federal High Court in Abuja has plunged the African Democratic Congress into a deeper legal and political storm, restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission from recognising or taking part in any congress organised by the party’s disputed caretaker leadership.

Justice Joyce Abdulmalik also barred former Senate President David Mark and other senior figures from interfering with the functions and tenure of elected state executives, in a ruling that strikes at the heart of the ADC’s leadership contest.

The case was filed by Norman Obinna and six others on behalf of state chairpersons and executive committees across the country, and it challenged the legality of a caretaker arrangement that moved to organise state congresses through an appointed committee.

The plaintiffs argued that only duly elected party organs could lawfully conduct such congresses, and they asked the court to protect the tenure of existing state executives from being cut short by parallel structures.

Justice Abdulmalik agreed that the complaint deserved judicial attention, saying she found “the issue in the originating summons meritorious”.

She treated the real question as whether the defendants, including Mr Mark, had lawful authority to assume the powers of elected state organs whose tenure is protected under party rules and constitutional norms.

Her ruling leaned heavily on Section 223 of the 1999 Constitution, which requires the constitution and rules of a political party to provide for “the periodical election on a democratic basis” of party officers, and on the ADC’s own constitution, which on the public copy hosted by INEC provides for fixed tenure and elections into national and state offices at the appropriate conventions and congresses.

In practical terms, the court treated the caretaker structure as a legal shortcut that could not override democratic tenure rules already built into the party’s constitution.

The judgment also set aside the appointment of the congress committee and restrained INEC from recognising any congress held under its authority.

It further barred Mr Mark and the other defendants from organising or supervising any congress or convention outside the party’s constitutional framework, while holding that the tenure of the existing state executive committees remains valid and must not be truncated by parallel arrangements.

What makes this ruling especially significant is that it arrives while the ADC’s leadership crisis is still in motion at the apex court.

Atlantic Post reported that the Supreme Court reserved judgment on 22 April in an appeal linked to the Mark-led faction, meaning the party is now trapped between an unresolved appellate dispute and a fresh lower-court order that narrows the room for manoeuvre.

That combination leaves INEC in an even more delicate position, because any recognition of a disputed structure could now collide with the Federal High Court’s injunction.

The roots of the crisis stretch back to the coalition politics that turned the ADC into a magnet for high-profile defectors and factional ambitions.

Atlantic Post reported that a new caretaker committee led by Mr Mark and Rauf Aregbesola emerged on 29 July 2025, while INEC later recognised the new leadership on 9 September 2025 before the dispute was challenged in court by Nafiu Bala and others.

That history explains why the party’s internal conflict has become more than a dispute over names and titles; it is now a fight over who controls the machinery that can shape future elections.

The Mark camp, for its part, has insisted that its process is valid and that the party will not be cowed. At the convention held in Abuja on 15 April, Vanguard reported Mark saying,

“We have made it clear that in an ever-shrinking democratic space, the ADC will not bow, will not be cowed, and we will not retreat.”

Rauf Aregbesola also defended the convention, saying, “Our convention valid, INEC failed in its duty,” while accusing the electoral umpire of not attending and monitoring the exercise.

Those statements show that the faction now checked by the court still believes it has political legitimacy, even if the legal road has become much steeper.

The wider lesson is uncomfortable for Nigeria’s party system. Once again, a political party that publicly sells itself as a democratic alternative has found itself dragged before a court over the very question of whether it follows its own constitution.

The judge’s intervention underscores a familiar truth in Nigerian politics: when party constitutions are ignored in the rush for control, the courts become the last referee.

For the ADC, the immediate casualty is not only a congress plan. It is the party’s claim to internal order, institutional discipline and credible opposition politics ahead of the next phase of national contestation.