An August 2025 INEC memo, a live court war and a rising membership claim have shoved the ADC into its most dangerous legitimacy crisis yet, with 2027 now looking less like a campaign and more like a legal brawl.
ABUJA, Nigeria — The African Democratic Congress has plunged deeper into chaos after a fresh INEC-linked memo reportedly exposed what officials described as fatal defects in the process that produced the David Mark-led caretaker structure.
The memo, dated 6 August 2025, stated that the party did not give the mandatory 21 days’ notice for the meeting. This meeting produced the caretaker committee. The party also failed to provide records of that meeting and did not forward specimen signatures for the supposed new leadership.
In election-law terms, that is not a minor clerical slip. It is the kind of breach that can poison an entire internal party process from the start.
What makes the matter more damaging is the logic inside the memo itself.
According to the document reproduced by Arise and ThisDay, INEC’s monitoring unit said the party notified the commission of the later NEC meeting. This meeting ratified the resolutions. However, the party did not notify the commission of the original gathering where the decisions were made.
The memo said the party did not specify when the caretaker arrangement was to take effect. It also warned that the commission had no power to invent a commencement date for a political party’s own decisions.
That is a direct attack on the legal foundation of the Mark bloc’s claim to authority.
The memo went further. It said the appointment of the caretaker committee was not the product of the NEC meeting itself. Instead, it was something done outside the meeting. It was only later dressed up for ratification.
It also noted that the party’s own minutes mentioned the caretaker committee. These minutes said it emerged from a previous NWC resolution before NEC approval.
In other words, the paperwork appears to tell two different stories at once.
One story says the caretaker committee came from NEC. The other says NEC merely rubber-stamped a process already concluded elsewhere. That contradiction is now at the heart of the dispute.
INEC’s public position has already hardened. On 1 April 2026, the commission said it would stop accepting correspondences from both the David Mark-led faction and the Rafiu Bala camp. It would no longer monitor any meetings, congresses or conventions involving either side until the Federal High Court settles the case.
The commission also said it would remove the names of Mark and Rauf Aregbesola from its portal.
That move effectively turned the ADC leadership struggle from an internal party matter into a national electoral compliance problem.
The legal battle is now moving on multiple fronts. The Court of Appeal in Abuja dismissed Mark’s appeal in March 2026. However, Nafiu Bala Gombe continues to insist that he is the authentic chairman. He argues that the resignation of the former leadership automatically placed him in charge.
The ADC has accused INEC of a “mischievous” interpretation of the ruling. It says it will challenge the commission in court. The ADC insists that the instruction to maintain the “status quo” did not authorise the removal of its leadership structure.
That language alone shows how toxic the relationship between the party and the umpire has become.
The political consequences are potentially brutal. ThisDay reports that opposition leaders are weighing alternative platforms such as APP and NDC. They will consider these if the ADC crisis is not resolved in time. May 8 is cited as a key deadline for register submissions ahead of the next electoral phase.
If that reporting is right, the leadership fight is no longer merely about who occupies party office. It is now about whether the party can even survive the machinery of nomination, registration and candidate validation.
For a party hoping to be taken seriously as an opposition force, that is a dangerous place to be.
Yet the ADC is trying to turn the crisis into momentum. Bolaji Abdullahi says the party has recorded more than 500,000 new members since INEC’s derecognition move. The figure rose sharply within days.
That surge may help the party’s public narrative, but it does not solve the core problem. A swelling membership list cannot replace lawful notice, valid signatures, clean minutes or undisputed leadership.
The numbers only sharpen the stakes. The ADC is attracting attention now. Its institutional footing looks weakest at this moment.
The hard truth is simple. The ADC is now fighting for legitimacy, recognition and political survival all at once.
The Mark camp says INEC has twisted the court order. INEC says it is merely obeying the court. A rival claimant says he is the rightful chairman. And a memo allegedly sitting in INEC’s files says the caretaker process was fatally flawed from the beginning. That is not just a party crisis. It is an opposition rupture with 2027 written all over it.
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