How the ADC’s Power Struggle Swallowed Adamawa, and What It Means for Nigeria’s Opposition Dream

On the morning of Thursday, April 9, 2026, party officials in Yola were arranging chairs, stacking materials, and mobilising ward executives for what was supposed to be a landmark congress. By midday, a court order had scattered everything. The African Democratic Congress had been stopped, yet again, by itself.

The ADC crisis is no longer just a story about powerful men in Abuja fighting over a party name. It has reached into Adamawa State with a ferocity that political watchers say could permanently cripple the opposition’s best chance of challenging the ruling All Progressives Congress before the 2027 elections. And the people who will pay the steepest price are not the senators or the former governors, they are the millions of Nigerians who believed, however briefly, that this time would be different.

How a Leadership Transition Became a National Catastrophe

The roots of the disagreement trace back to July 2025, when the long-serving national chairman Ralph Nwosu stepped down from his position. Nwosu, according to reports, had allegedly extended his own tenure, which birthed conflicts and court proceedings within the party before his resignation. He then endorsed an interim leadership headed by former Senate President David Mark, a process that was initially monitored by INEC.

What should have been a clean handover became a grenade with a missing pin. In 2025, several prominent politicians across party lines began aligning with the ADC as part of broader coalition-building efforts. Among those associated with the movement are the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, alongside other former governors and political office holders from different regions. The idea was bold, a single opposition platform powerful enough to dislodge the APC in 2027. But ambition, as Nigeria has seen too many times, has a way of collapsing under the weight of ego.

Nafiu Bala, who had served as deputy national chairman, approached the courts on September 2, 2025, seeking to be recognised as the rightful chairman of the ADC, insisting he had never resigned from his position and was constitutionally entitled to assume leadership. The David Mark faction rejected this entirely, arguing that Bala had resigned from the position of Deputy National Chairman on May 17, 2025, and that his resignation had been transmitted to INEC on August 12, 2025.

A third camp then emerged. Dumebi Kachikwu, the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, announced plans to organise a national convention and set up an interim leadership, with his spokesperson Norman Obinna rejecting the authority of both rival factions, arguing that “the ADC remains a party of and for all Nigerians, and not just for former political office holders and the elites.”

Three factions. Three chairmen. One party. E no make sense.

The standoff reached a critical point on April 1, 2026, when INEC withdrew recognition of the competing factions, citing a March 12 judgment of the Court of Appeal. The development paralysed the party’s nationwide activities, with at least six state chapters suspending planned congresses and party programmes. INEC deleted the names of David Mark as National Chairman and Rauf Aregbesola as National Secretary from its official portal, prompting the Mark faction to immediately drag INEC before the Federal High Court in Abuja in a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1819/2025.

Adamawa, the Battleground That Tells the Whole Story

If you want to understand what the ADC crisis actually looks like on the ground, look at Adamawa.

A High Court in Adamawa State halted the party’s state, local government, and ward congresses slated for April 9, 2026. The order was issued by Justice Ahmed Isah of High Court No. 6 in Yola, following a suit filed by the party’s state chairman, Yohanna Shehu, who challenged his alleged exclusion from the congress planning process. “How can you plan party congresses without involving the state chairman?” Shehu queried, defending his decision to seek judicial intervention.

The answer to that question lies somewhere between political greed and structural collapse.

The crisis in Adamawa deepened after Sadiq Dasin was announced as the new ADC state chairman, a move that reportedly triggered deep resentment among key stakeholders who felt sidelined in the process. Party insiders said senators with strong grassroots followership viewed the imposition as a clear violation of internal democracy and an attempt to foist leadership without consultation or consensus.

The ADC in Adamawa has been fractured into multiple camps, reportedly including factions loyal to the state chairman’s group, Senator Aisha Binani, Senator Ishaku Abbo, and former Governor Senator Mohammed Umaru Bindow, who joined the party in 2025 and is now reportedly considering leaving if the crisis persists unresolved. A source close to the former governor’s camp told a media outlet that “the senator is consulting widely with his loyalists.”

Senator Elisha Ishaku Abbo publicly accused both Babachir Lawal and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of failing to provide credible leadership, alleging their actions had deepened divisions within the party. These are not ordinary accusations. Abbo and Binani are among the most recognisable political figures in the North East. Their potential departure would not just wound the ADC in Adamawa, it would signal to every grassroots voter in the region that the opposition coalition was never built for them.

Meanwhile, Adamawa is widely regarded as a key battleground state, and political observers warn that the deepening crisis could significantly weaken the party’s chances in future polls if the factions fail to reconcile.

The Accountability Question Nobody Wants to Answer

The crisis in the ADC is not accidental. It is the predictable result of a party structure that was handed to powerful politicians without the consent of its membership.

The party, once considered a possible platform for opposition collaboration, is now dealing with competing leadership structures, with three separate factions asserting legitimacy ahead of the 2027 general elections. The electoral commission has stated that it will not recognise any faction pending the resolution of court cases, and that it would not monitor meetings, congresses, or conventions organised by any of the groups.

On April 8, 2026, the David Mark-led ADC staged a protest march to INEC headquarters in Abuja, with David Mark, Rauf Aregbesola, Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rotimi Amaechi, and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso leading the demonstration. In a formal petition, the ADC called for the immediate resignation or removal of INEC chairman Joseph Amupitan, accusing him of misconduct and abuse of office, and warning that “the credibility of the Commission is now at stake.”

That is a remarkable statement from a party that cannot agree on who its own chairman is.

The follow-the-money question here is equally revealing. In 2025, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar left the Peoples Democratic Party to join the ADC as part of a coalition to challenge the APC in the 2027 election. Peter Obi, former Labour Party presidential candidate, also joined the coalition, though he has not formally registered with the ADC. ADC leaders described the move as an attempt to prevent one-party rule by the All Progressives Congress.

But the entry of so many big names, all with their own structures, resources, and ambitions, is precisely what turned a manageable succession into a civil war. The ADC was not enlarged by this coalition; it was overwhelmed by it.

What the Courts Have Said, and What the People Have Heard

The legal map of this crisis now stretches from Abuja to Yola to Katsina and beyond.

On March 12, 2026, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal filed by the Mark faction, ruling that it lacked merit and did not meet procedural requirements. Following INEC’s derecognition of both the Mark-led and Bala-led factions, the situation placed the party in a state of uncertainty as stakeholders awaited judicial clarification.

The parallel court orders in Adamawa and Katsina have threatened to disrupt the ADC’s internal electoral process and preparations for its upcoming national convention, which had been scheduled for April 14, 2026. Both cases have been adjourned to April 15 for further hearing.

In a swift reaction after the Adamawa court ruling, the ADC congress committee said the party was unaware of any court order halting its activities, and maintained that all processes leading to the party’s national convention remained on course. Which is the kind of statement that would be funny, if the consequences were not so serious.

Political analyst Iliyasu Hadi had once suggested that the ADC realignment would lead to the party emerging as Nigeria’s main opposition platform. That prediction now looks like it was made in a different country.

Jibrin Musa, a civil society researcher who monitors party structures in Northern Nigeria, put it plainly, “What you are seeing in Adamawa is what happens when a party is built from the top down. The big men came with their structures, their money, and their grudges. The party members at the ward level are now collateral damage.”

The INEC did not respond to The Gazette News’s requests for comment on its next steps regarding the ADC convention as of press time. The ADC’s national secretariat also did not respond to questions submitted on the Adamawa situation.

What This Means for the Person Who Was Counting on Change

In a market in Yola, a civil servant who asked not to be named told this reporter that she had registered with the ADC in 2025 because she believed the coalition meant something. “They told us this was going to be different,” she said. “Now every time I open my phone, another court case. Another senator threatening to leave. Na so e be every time with these people.”

Her frustration is shared by thousands of Nigerians who registered with the party during its 2025 membership surge. A faction in one northern state cited a significant influx of defectors from the PDP, APC, NNPP, and Labour Party as justification for postponing its congresses, saying that conducting them prematurely “may not reflect the true representation of the party’s growing strength.” The irony is suffocating. The party postponed its own democracy to accommodate new members, then denied those very members a voice in how the party is run.

The 2027 elections are less than 18 months away. The APC has incumbency, federal resources, and a state structure across the country. The ADC, which was supposed to be the answer, is currently fighting itself in at least six states, with its Adamawa chapter frozen by court order and its most prominent figures threatening to walk.

The woman in Yola already knows what the political class has not yet admitted. “If they cannot even agree on who is the chairman,” she said, adjusting the wrapper on her back as she turned to leave, “how are they going to run a country?”

That question about the ADC’s Power Struggle deserves an answer. So far, nobody with the power to give one is even in the same room.