The recent judgment by Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court, Abuja, deregistering the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Accord and others, is as intriguing as it is unsettling. On one side, many Nigerians see a conspiracy. ADC leaders frame the ruling through the lens of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s alleged grand plan to foist a one-party system on Nigeria. For them, this is politics by judicial fiat. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar reinforced that fear, warning shortly after the judgment that “deregistering opposition parties through judicial fiat is the fastest route to dictatorship” and accusing the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of working to eliminate political alternatives ahead of 2027.
On the other side, legal purists call it constitutionalism. Section 225A of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), mandates the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deregister parties that fail to meet clear electoral thresholds. It states: “The Independent National Electoral Commission shall have power to deregister a political party on any of the following grounds: (a) the breach of any of the requirements for registration of such political party; (b) failure to win at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in one State of the Federation in a Presidential election or 25 per cent of the votes cast in one Local Government Area of a State in a Governorship election.”
A legal practitioner and Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice of Ondo State, Dr Kayode Ajulo (SAN), countered the conspiracy argument in a published article titled, Deregistration of ADC and Others: Why Justice Lifu’s Judgment is Constitutionalism in its Purest Form: “Political parties are required to attain stipulated electoral thresholds or face deregistration by INEC. There is no room for sentiment. No constitutional exemption for political nostalgia. No special immunity for political convenience. Even more importantly, these provisions did not suddenly emerge from the desk of President Tinubu. They were products of constitutional amendments assented to in 2018 by the late President Muhammadu Buhari. The legal architecture predates this administration and belongs not to any individual but to the Nigerian state itself.
“Political parties unable to command meaningful electoral support cannot insist upon an eternal constitutional right to remain on the ballot. Democracy is strengthened by institutions with legitimacy, not by an endless multiplication of political signboards.”
He urged politicians to do thorough background checks before jumping ship: “Before any serious Nigerian joins or builds a political party, the first obligation ought to be legal due diligence. Is the platform constitutionally compliant? Does it possess legal viability? Is it a genuine political institution or merely a temporary vehicle for ambition? Boarding a politically defective platform after constitutional warning signs have already appeared is like boarding a vessel after inspectors have declared it unseaworthy. Surprise at the outcome becomes difficult to justify,” he added.
Yet even if the law is clear, the process was not. Justice Lifu delivered the judgment despite a subsisting stay of execution from the Court of Appeal, raising more questions than answers. It blurs the line of authority in Nigeria’s court hierarchy and leaves the judiciary open to accusations of forum-shopping and haste. The ruling forces a national question: Is INEC enforcing constitutional standards, or is the judiciary being used to thin Nigeria’s party system ahead of 2027?
ADC crisis deepens
For the ADC, the stakes are immediate and existential. The party’s survival is currently being choked by a pincer movement of two parallel legal wars: the deregistration battle and the leadership tussle. While Justice Lifu ordered INEC to immediately deregister the ADC alongside the Accord Party, Action Alliance, Action Peoples Party and Zenith Labour Party for failing to hit the 25 per cent electoral benchmark, the party has secured a temporary breather. The Court of Appeal in Abuja swiftly stepped in, issuing a stay of execution on Justice Lifu’s judgment and flagging procedural irregularities in how the lower court handled the matter while related aspects were pending.
However, this lifeline is fragile. The Court of Appeal has slated the substantive hearing for October 2026. Until then, the ADC exists in a state of legal purgatory, legally alive by virtue of the stay, but functionally handicapped under the shadow of permanent elimination.
Compounding its external threat is a bitter internal factional war for the soul of the party. The tussle pits a faction led by former Senate President Senator David Mark, which features former Osun State Governor Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola as National Secretary, against a counter-faction led by Nafiu Bala Gombe. Nafiu Gombe filed the Suit FHC/ABJ/CS/1819/2025 before Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court, Abuja, challenging the legitimacy of David Mark’s leadership takeover. Following a March 2026 Court of Appeal order telling parties to maintain the status quo ante bellum, INEC abruptly removed David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola’s names from its official portal. This triggered a fierce counter-protest in Abuja by Gombe’s faction demanding full formal recognition, while the Mark-led National Working Committee filed an accelerated motion to force INEC to restore their details, asking the court to dismiss Gombe’s suit entirely based on Section 83 of the Electoral Act.
For both legal hurdles, time is of the essence. Justice Nwite has fixed June 23, 2026, to hear all pending motions regarding this leadership paralysis. The convergence of these legal crises yields severe structural implications for the 2027 electoral cycle. The Court of Appeal’s October 2026 date to decide the deregistration order sits dangerously close to INEC’s statutory deadlines for candidate nominations and substitutions for the 2027 polls. If the appellate court upholds Justice Lifu’s deregistration, the ADC will be automatically barred from the 2027 ballot, rendering any primary elections it conducts before October completely null and void.
In a search for a formidable alliance, the ADC has been adopted as a potential vehicle or coalition partner for high-profile opposition tickets like Atiku Abubakar and former Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi. With its registration facing an October guillotine and its leadership split between David Mark and Nafiu Gombe, the ADC is currently toxic for mega-merger negotiations. No serious political heavyweights will risk their ambitions on a platform whose legal viability is on trial. Until Justice Nwite resolves the leadership dispute, INEC cannot legally accept candidate lists, congress reports, or statutory notifications from the ADC. If the factional war drags late into the year, the party will run out of time to field candidates for governorship, National Assembly and presidential slots. Ultimately, the ADC is caught in a race against time. It must salvage its internal leadership structure by late June, while praying the Court of Appeal permanently dismantles the deregistration order in October. Failure on either front means the party will enter 2027 not as a vibrant third-force alternative, but as a fractured platform for the opposition coalition.
Shockwaves rattle Osun Accord Party
While the ADC battles structural and leadership issues at the federal level, Justice Lifu’s judgment has dropped like a political nuclear bomb on Osun State. Among the five listed for INEC’s hammer, the Accord carries the heaviest immediate political burden. The deregistration has sent shock waves through the political camp of Osun State governor, Ademola Adeleke. Following deep-seated, prolonged internal crises within the Peoples Democratic Party over the control of the state party structure, Governor Adeleke dumped the PDP and officially defected to the Accord to seek his second-term mandate. With the off-cycle Osun governorship election scheduled for August 15, 2026, Justice Lifu’s order effectively throws the governor’s new political vehicle off balance even if temporarily. The legal torpedo hitting the Accord dramatically alters the stakes for the upcoming Osun poll and reverberates toward 2027. The ruling struck precisely as Governor Adeleke flagged off his high-profile re-election campaign at the Freedom Park in Osogbo. Confronted by a mammoth crowd, including heavyweights like Senator Iyiola Omisore’s political structure and former APC commissioners who just defected to Accord, Adeleke was forced to spend his speech reassuring voters rather than focusing on his scorecard. While Adeleke has vehemently dismissed the judgment as “an open threat against the integrity of the electoral process” and an affront to a subsisting Court of Appeal stay, the psychological damage among voters is done.
In a statement issued in Osogbo on Monday by the governor’s spokesperson, Olawale Rasheed, the governor’s camp doubled down: “I call on Osun people to remain calm and be assured that our rights will be affirmed and our party, the Accord, will be on the ballot on August 15th. We will not only be on the ballot, we will win overwhelmingly the forthcoming governorship election. We should remain calm and forge ahead with mobilisation of our people.”
The opposition APC will undoubtedly weaponise this judgment, telling voters that casting a ballot for the Accord is a wasted vote. Adeleke’s legal team is banking heavily on the Court of Appeal to set aside Justice Lifu’s judgment. However, the appellate court’s substantive hearing regarding the broader deregistration matter is slated for October 2026. This creates a catastrophic timeline mismatch, especially given that the Accord Party in Osun has become a formidable refuge for aggrieved politicians. The defection of key loyalists of former Governor Gboyega Oyetola and Senator Omisore to the party is meant to build an impregnable fortress against the APC. By legally dismantling the party, the judiciary has effectively scattered this grand coalition, leaving Adeleke in a state of uncertainty until the appellate court reverses the deregistration order of the Federal High Court.
The timing mismatch poses a direct constitutional risk for Osun. If Adeleke wins the August 15 election but the Court of Appeal upholds the deregistration order in October 2026, his mandate faces immediate legal jeopardy. Section 221 of the 1999 Constitution states that “no association other than a political party shall canvass for votes for any candidate at any election.” Once INEC deregisters Accord, it ceases to exist as a political party in law. That means Adeleke would have been elected on the platform of a non-existent party. The APC would likely challenge the result at the Election Petition Tribunal, citing the Zamfara 2019 precedent where the Supreme Court sacked all APC candidates because the party failed to hold valid primaries.
The tribunal could nullify Adeleke’s victory and order a fresh election within 90 days. With Accord dead by then, Adeleke would have to defect to PDP or another registered party and start over. INEC would face its own dilemma: whether to issue a Certificate of Return to a candidate of a party it must deregister two months later. The “wasted vote” narrative APC is pushing would then be legally validated, deepening public distrust in the process.
For Adeleke, victory at the ballot may not translate to victory in law unless he defects before inauguration and the courts accept that remedy.
The blame game
Like the familiar accusation of conspiracy, the ruling APC has been fingered by the opposition for the raging controversy. A chieftain of the ADC in Lagos, Tunji Shelle, described the judgment as an abuse of power. He said in a telephone conversation with Sunday Sun: “I think it is just a mere distraction. It is an extension of what is going on in the APC in terms of the plan toward a one-party state. But we have already passed that stage, either legally or otherwise. I do not know about other parties, but there is nothing threatening the ADC. The ADC has crossed the threshold. We have members of the House of Representatives and State Assembly from the last general election. The requirement is just an ordinary councillor, a seat in the National Assembly or state House of Assembly.
“It is as if somebody is doing their bidding. The law is very clear on the matter, so the ADC is not looking in that direction at all. One cannot expect somebody to come up with such an abuse of power. The ADC is confident that its name will be on the ballot in the general election.
” The court is being used to truncate democracy. The judiciary should be careful. Their sponsors, too, if any, should also be careful. The judgment is not healthy. We are not running a one-party state. Opposition parties should not be threatened or prevented from participating in elections. It does not speak well of our democracy. INEC has already seen the handwriting on the wall that it cannot stop the ADC from participating in the elections. We are waiting for the election to come; they will see the dexterity in the ADC. The strength of the party will be shown in the 2027 elections.
“The judgment is being used by some political groups to cause crisis in the party. The busybody behind the whole scenario is being sponsored to cause unnecessary controversy. Otherwise, what has a group of former lawmakers got to do with party registration? They are only being sponsored, and we know them.”
Speaking further on the lingering leadership tussle, he added: “Concerning the man who wanted to take over the party, records show that he has officially resigned from the party. He was there when the party was being transferred from the old order to the new one. He was part and parcel of it.”
A constitutional lawyer, Dr Tunji Abayomi, in a counter argument, dismissed as nonsensical the accusation of conspiracy: “I do not agree with the accusation that the judiciary is being used for a personal agenda. That is not correct. It is wrong for anybody to blame the ruling party for everything that is going on in the opposition. If you have a quarrel in your house, it is the ruling party. The ruling party is responsible for everything. Tell me one party that is not divided. You leave your own party, take over another political party without due process, and then you complain that it is the ruling party causing the crisis. I think that is nonsense.”
For both the ADC and the Accord, time is of the essence. While the ADC scrambles to resolve its David Mark versus Nafiu Gombe leadership paralysis before Justice Emeka Nwite on June 23, 2026, the Accord Party is fighting an immediate battle for survival in the trenches of Osun State. The convergence of these legal crises yields severe structural implications. If the Court of Appeal does not permanently dismantle the deregistration order, the ripple effects will be devastating. High-profile alternative tickets involving Atiku Abubakar and former Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi will lose viable backup platforms. Until the courts clear these parties, INEC cannot legally accept candidate lists or congress reports, running them out of time for the 2027 general elections. Ultimately, both parties are caught in a vicious race against time.
For the ADC, it is a battle to remain viable for 2027. For Governor Ademola Adeleke and the Accord, it is a literal fight to survive the August 2026 ballot. Failure on either front means the opposition will enter the next major electoral cycles not as vibrant third-force alternatives, but as a cautionary tale of institutional fragmentation.
Credit: The Sun