A crisis quietly tearing through the African Democratic Congress (ADC) has political stakeholders in Abuja asking uncomfortable questions, not merely about the party’s internal affairs but about the integrity of the institutions meant to referee Nigeria’s democracy.

On the surface, the ADC dispute looks like yet another of those familiar party squabbles that routinely migrate from conference halls to courtrooms. But conversations with party officials, a review of certified documentary evidence and an examination of the conduct of key actors reveal something more calculated: A leadership challenge that critics within the party say was manufactured, strategically timed and weaponised through the courts at a moment when the ADC is emerging as one of the country’s most credible opposition platforms ahead of the 2027 general election.

The party’s account is contained in a detailed document, titled “The ADC Legal Battle: Facts, Fiction and the Manufactured Crisis”, prepared by National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, and supported by attendance sheets, resignation letters, court filings and records from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The documentary record begins on March 27, 2025, when the ADC’s National Working Committee (NWC), then chaired by Chief Ralph Nwosu, convened its 97th NEC meeting. The party resolved to waive its two-year membership requirement for NWC admission, a deliberate move to accommodate new entrants as part of a coalition-building exercise. Among those present, the certified attendance sheet confirms, was Nafiu Bala Gombe, then serving as Deputy National Chairman.

What followed was an orderly, if consequential, leadership transition. On May 15, a NEC meeting was convened with a clear agenda: executives would resign to allow a coalition leadership to take over. Two days later, on May 17, Nafiu Bala Gombe submitted a resignation letter to the National Chairman, formally vacating his position with effect from May 26. His stated reason was unambiguous: “to make way for a smooth and effective coalition and restructuring.”

By July 2, the NWC had resolved to hand over to a caretaker committee and on his verified Facebook page, Nafiu Bala Gombe, identifying himself as Deputy National Chairman, celebrated the development. He wrote that coalition members had formally adopted the ADC as their 2027 platform, with Senator David Mark as National Chairman and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola as National Secretary. He pledged commitment to the project.

On July 11, he attended a meeting at Senator Mark’s residence, where members of the old NWC pledged loyalty to the new leadership. Video evidence of the occasion also exists.

On July 29, the formal NEC meeting was held at Chelsea Hotel, Abuja. INEC officials were deployed to monitor the proceedings. The certified attendance sheet places Gombe at number 53 on the register. The caretaker committee was ratified. INEC filed a monitoring report to its headquarters, subsequently updated its records, and uploaded the names of the new leadership to its official platform. In September, the media captured the development with the headline: “INEC Finally Recognises David Mark-Led ADC”.

Then came September 2, 2025, four months after his voluntary resignation, two months after the NEC meeting that ratified the new leadership, weeks after his Facebook endorsement and days after pledging loyalty at Senator Mark’s home.

On that date, Gombe walked into the Federal High Court in Abuja and filed an action seeking recognition as Chairman of the ADC. Not Deputy National Chairman, a position he had resigned. Chairman. The highest office in the party. A position to which he had never been elected, never been appointed, and to which no meeting record, no NEC resolution and no INEC document assigns him any claim.

Senior party officials, while speaking on the development to Daily Sun, were blunt. “Show us the meeting,” one said. “Show us the date, the venue, the attendance sheet, the resolution. There is nothing. It does not exist.”

The ADC’s document frames the challenge with precision: When was this purported chairmanship ratified? At which meeting? Who were the members present? Who serves as his National Secretary? No credible answer has been forthcoming. The document describes the claim as “effectively a one-man assertion without organisational legitimacy.”

Faced with the paper trail of his own resignation, Gombe advanced a central counter-argument: The resignation letter was forged. It is a serious allegation. Forgery is a criminal offence under Section 465 of the Nigerian Criminal Code Act, with significant penalties under related provisions. If a senior party official genuinely discovers that his signature was forged on a document communicated to INEC, the expected response is unambiguous, a criminal petition, a police complaint, a formal investigation.

None of that happened. No petition was filed. No investigation was initiated through any law enforcement channel. A comparative review of signatures across multiple official documents, NEC and NWC attendance sheets spanning several years, shows consistency with the signature on the resignation letter, with no material deviations of the kind typically associated with forgery.

In the resignation letter, the word “Chairman” is spelled “Chairman.” Screenshots from Gombe’s own Facebook posts, across multiple dates and contexts, show the same idiosyncratic spelling. In May 2022, he refers to the “chairman ADC national women leader committee.” In January 2023, he referenced the “acting chairman African democratic congress.” In the July 2025 post celebrating the coalition transition, he wrote “I as a deputy national chairman of the party.”

Document analysis consistently holds that personal idiosyncratic errors, precisely because they are difficult for third parties to replicate accurately, are among the strongest indicators of authentic authorship. The misspelling, analysts note, argues powerfully against forgery.

Beyond the documents, Gombe’s post-resignation conduct is difficult to reconcile with victimhood. Analysts argue that participated in post-resignation meetings, publicly identified with the ADC structure, attended the July NEC meeting, and pledged loyalty to the new leadership, at no point raising any public alarm about any alleged forgery.

Of all the dimensions of this dispute, it is the conduct of INEC that most concerns democratic watchers in Abuja. The Commission was not a passive observer in the ADC transition. INEC officials were formally deployed to monitor the July 29 NEC meeting. They filed a monitoring report. INEC’s own affidavit, filed in court, confirms that the Commission received notice of the meeting, deployed officials, documented the proceedings, and subsequently uploaded the new leadership to its platform, constituting formal institutional recognition of the David Mark-led structure.

Then, on April 1, 2026, INEC issued a press statement announcing it would no longer recognise Senator David Mark and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola pending final determination of the case, following letters from lawyers acting for Gombe demanding enforcement of a Court of Appeal preservation order.

What makes INEC’s position difficult to defend, sources say, is the Commission’s own court filings. In Clauses 14 through 19 of its affidavit, INEC argued “that an injunction cannot lie to stop a completed act; that the matter concerns the internal affairs of a political party; that courts should not interfere in political questions reserved for parties; and that Supreme Court precedents affirm non-interference in party affairs.”

These arguments support the ADC’s position. Pundits believe that they expose the incoherence of INEC’s current conduct. The Commission monitored the process, recognised the outcome, defended that recognition in court, and has now suspended it on the basis of a legal action filed by a man whose resignation it acknowledged and whose chairmanship claim has no evidentiary foundation.

The Court of Appeal, in its March 12, 2026 ruling in Appeal No. CA/ABJ/145/2026, directed parties to maintain the status quo ante bellum, pending determination by the Federal High Court. Gombe’s lawyers interpreted this as requiring INEC to recognise him as Chairman.

The ADC’s response is legally straightforward. The doctrine of status quo ante bellum refers to the last stable, peaceful, uncontested state of affairs before the dispute arose. At the moment Gombe filed his court action in September 2025, the uncontested situation was: the old NWC had stepped aside; the NEC had been dissolved; a caretaker leadership under David Mark and Aregbesola had been installed; INEC had formally recognised this outcome; and Nafiu Bala Gombe himself had resigned, participated in, endorsed, and celebrated the transition.

The disruption arose from his court action. According to analysts, the status quo being preserved is therefore the David Mark-led structure and not a chairmanship position that has never existed in any meeting record, any party resolution, or any regulatory document.

“Nigeria is about eight months away from a general election. The ADC, over the past nine months, has attracted senior political figures and positioned itself as a credible opposition alternative. The destruction of that platform through legal attrition would not only harm the party. It would narrow the competitive space that democratic elections require,” a political pundit, Charles Agbo stated, while reacting to the development

Opposition figures in Abuja, speaking candidly, express concern about what this dispute signals. “If you can manufacture a leadership crisis, drag it through the courts, and get INEC to suspend recognition of a legitimately constituted structure,” one stakeholder told Daily Sun, “then no opposition party is safe.”

INEC has a constitutional mandate that extends beyond administering elections. It includes acting consistently, transparently, and in a manner that protects democratic processes. When the same Commission that monitored a party transition, recognised its outcome, and defended that recognition in sworn documents reverses course on legally contested grounds, the credibility of electoral governance is placed under strain.

The facts in this matter, documented, certified, and supported by the Commission’s own filings, point in one clear direction. The question now is whether Nigeria’s institutions have the independence to follow where the evidence leads. History, and 2027, will provide the verdict. (The Sun)