Supreme Court grants accelerated hearing of appeal on ADC leadership dispute

The Supreme Court, on Tuesday, granted a request for an accelerated hearing of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) leadership dispute.

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A five-member panel of the court led by Lawan Garba fixed 22 April for the hearing of the case.

The panel earlier on Tuesday fixed the same date to hear appeals regarding similar leadership disputes within another opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The ADC appeal was filed by the interim national chairman of a faction of the party, David Mark, who is a former president of the Nigerian Senate.

Mr Mark’s lawyer, Jibrin Okutepa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), requested the Supreme Court to grant the case an accelerated hearing, citing urgency of the situation.

Granting the request, the court directed Mr Okutepa 24 hours to file and serve his brief of argument.

He also gave the respondents’ lawyers three days to file their response on being served the appellant’s brief.

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The respondents are Nafiu Bala, who is laying claim to be the legitimate national chairman of the party; Rauf Aregbesola, who is the interim national secretary of the Mark-led faction of the party), the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and Ralph Nwosu, a former national chairman of the party.

Backstory

The journey to the Supreme Court followed ADC’s leadership crisis which ensued last year in the wake of the influx of top politicians into the party.

The political bigwigs joined the ADC in droves included Mr Mark, Mr Aregbesola, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, former Kaduna State Governor Ahmed El-Rufai, and former Minister of Transport Rotimi Amaechi.

The politicians, who defected from mainly from the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the PDP, had adopted the ADC as a coalition platform to challenge President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 election.

The leadership crisis in the party began after the resignation of the party’s former executives led by Mr Nwosu and the emergence of a new National Working Committee led by Mr Mark on 29 July 2025.

The development triggered a legal challenge when Mr Bala, a former vice-national chairperson of the party, filed a suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja seeking recognition as the party’s rightful leader under its constitution.

INEC was joined as the fourth defendant in the suit.

While the case was pending, the Federal High Court ordered all parties to maintain the status quo pending determination of the substantive suit.

The Court of Appeal later dismissed an interlocutory appeal filed by the Mark-led faction and ordered all parties, including INEC, to maintain the status quo earlier ordered by the Federal High Court, pending further determination of the matter.

The Court of Appeal’s decision would mark a major shift in the dispute over the party’s leadership structure.

Following the ruling, INEC received letters from both factions on 16 March.

The Mark-led faction asked the commission not to recognise Mr Bala and to maintain its position pending resolution of the dispute, while the Bala faction asked INEC to give effect to the Court of Appeal judgment of 12 March in its favour.

INEC later removed the names of Mr Mark as national chairman and Rauf Aregbesola as national secretary from its website on 1 April, saying it would not recognise any faction pending the resolution of the legal disputes.

The dispute later escalated into a protest in Abuja, where party members accused INEC of bias and warned that the handling of the crisis threatened internal democracy within the party.

While the substantive hearing at the Federal High Court in Abuja unfolded, Mr Mark and his group proceeded to the Supreme Court to challenge the Court of Appeal’s ruling.