Closed-door Abuja talks, an INEC petition and rival faction wars suggest Nigeria’s battered opposition is racing to build a 2027 front before the courts and the electoral umpire shut more doors.
On Wednesday in Abuja, opposition politics again moved from the courtroom to the living room of power. A faction of the African Democratic Congress led by David Mark was reported to be meeting a Peoples Democratic Party bloc led by Kabiru Turaki, just hours after the ADC staged a protest at INEC headquarters.
The timing matters. This was not a routine courtesy call. It was a visible attempt by bruised opposition actors to test whether a single anti-ruling-party platform can still be stitched together before the 2027 general elections.
The meeting, held at Mark’s Abuja residence, drew a heavy line-up that says everything about the scale of the opposition’s ambition and its disorder.
On the Mark side, reports listed Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Aminu Tambuwal, Abubakar Malami and Rotimi Amaechi. On the Turaki side were Seyi Makinde, Babangida Aliyu, Jerry Gana and Adolphus Wabara.
TheCable said the talks were aimed at “exploring possible alliances” ahead of 2027. That language is important. It suggests the parties are still in the scouting phase, not yet in the merger room.
That distinction is critical, because the evidence now points less to a settled coalition than to a desperate survival bargain.
The ADC has been locked in a legitimacy fight since last year, with internal claims and counterclaims over who truly controls the platform.
The party’s crisis deepened when INEC withdrew recognition from the Mark-led leadership, while other blocs and state chairmen rejected both the Mark and Nafiu Bala camps and even announced an interim leadership of their own.
In other words, the opposition is not merely fragmented. It is competing with itself on multiple fronts.
The deeper flashpoint is INEC. The ADC says the commission’s refusal to receive its correspondence, pending the outcome of a Federal High Court matter, could block it from meeting electoral deadlines.
The party has warned that this creates a “direct and dangerous conflict” with the Electoral Act timelines, including the May 10 deadline for submission of key documents.
That fear is not abstract. If a party cannot get its paperwork received, logged and processed, it risks being locked out of the administrative chain that leads to candidate nomination.
At the protest at INEC headquarters, the ADC escalated the rhetoric sharply and demanded the resignation or removal of INEC chairman Joash Amupitan, accusing him of partisanship, gross misconduct and constitutional breaches.
The party also argued that “the interpretation of court judgments is the exclusive preserve of the judiciary”, not the electoral commission.
The accusation is politically explosive, but the factual anchor is straightforward: Amupitan is the current INEC chairman, having been sworn in on October 23, 2025 by President Bola Tinubu, according to both INEC and the State House.
INEC, for its part, has said it would not engage with the Mark-led ADC camp or the Bala faction while the court process remains unresolved.
The commission’s position is that it will not attend meetings, congresses or conventions involving the disputed blocs pending the determination of the case before the Federal High Court.
That is why the present dispute has become so dangerous for the opposition: the party wants administrative recognition, but the electoral umpire says the courts must settle the ownership question first.
Meanwhile, the Turaki-led PDP faction is also under judicial strain, a Federal High Court barred it from accessing the national secretariat.
A further complication is that the ADC itself is not speaking with one voice. One bloc of state chairmen rejected both the David Mark and Nafiu Bala factions, accused them of having “hijacked” the party, and announced an interim leadership of its own.
Another factional current, meanwhile, has publicly backed Mark. This means the party is fighting not just INEC and the courts, but a three way internal contest over who owns the logo, the machinery and the right to speak for the platform.
That is a very weak foundation on which to build a national coalition.
So what does the Abuja meeting really mean? The safest reading is that it is a coalition probe born out of weakness, not strength.
The opposition knows that 2027 will not reward disunity, especially when the ruling party already benefits from incumbency, court delays and fragmented rivals.
But a coalition built while key blocs are still contesting their own legitimacy may end up as little more than a camera moment.
The real battle is not just against APC. It is against legal uncertainty, administrative blockage and the politics of who gets recognised as the true bearer of opposition power.
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