By Kenneth Gbandi, Deputy National Chairman (Diaspora Engagement, 2023), African Democratic Congress (ADC) & Global Chairman, ADC-DN
As a member of the African Democratic Congress responsible for our global diaspora membership, I hold an inescapable duty to defend our party’s internal democracy against external erosion. Yet the crisis generated by the recent Federal High Court ruling extends far beyond any single officer, faction, or domestic office. It strikes at the heart of an alarming trend in Nigerian politics: the weaponization of judicial interpretation under the shadow of sinister external influences. When a court purports to overturn the leadership apparatus of a major opposition party overnight, every unbiased observer of our constitutional republic must ask whether our courts are serving as custodians of law or as executioners of opposition stability.
The ruling delivered on November 5, 2026, which recklessly purported to invalidate the Senator David Mark-led Caretaker Committee and nullify our presidential nomination processes represents a deeply flawed reading of internal party governance. In an era where political heavyweights and external actors routinely leverage judicial proxies to destabilize viable opposition movements, this judgment bears all the hallmarks of an orchestrated distraction. To reduce the governance of a nationwide political party to a single administrative clause is not merely a misstep in legal reasoning; it is a judicial overreach that ignores the integrated harmony of the ADC Constitution.
The fundamental error at the heart of Hon. Nafiu Bala Gombe’s challenge and the trial court’s eager adoption of it lies in confusing a temporary meeting rule with substantive executive succession. The ADC Constitution establishes several Deputy National Chairman portfolios, providing explicitly that when the National Chairman is absent, the Deputy National Chairman (Membership) presides over meetings, or in their absence, another present Deputy takes the chair. This provision governs procedure within a meeting room; it does not crown a presiding officer as the substantive National Chairman of the party. While Article 22 mandates that a departing chairman hand over administrative custody to his deputy to prevent an operational vacuum, that handover is an administrative relay, not an automatic coronation. Crucially, Article 23(f) governs actual vacancies, empowering the National Executive Committee to appoint a substitute pending an election at a National Convention when such vaccines exist. To ignore Article 23(f) and treat a transitional handover as an unassailable mandate to rule is to strip the National Executive Committee of its statutory authority and hand executive control to judicial fiat.
Political parties are member-driven, democratic institutions governed by collective organs, not personal fiefdoms automatically inherited by whichever deputy happens to stand closest to the door when a vacancy occurs. By elevating an administrative handover clause above the explicit powers of the National Executive Committee, the court has succumbed to an engineered reading designed to destabilize the ADC from the outside. In a political climate where compromised mandates and fake agency threaten democratic institutions, any judgment that dismantles established party structures without reading the constitution as a complete whole must be viewed with profound skepticism.
Our party has rightfully appealed this decision and applied for a stay of execution. The dispute remains firmly before the appellate courts, meaning the trial court’s ruling is far from the final word. While we maintain respect for an independent judiciary, true respect demands that we resist judicial overreach and expose external meddling whenever it threatens the constitutional independence of political parties. The ultimate authority of the ADC belongs to its constitution and its members, not to a judicial jamboree designed to compromise opposition strength.
Hon. (Dr.) Kenneth Chibuogwu Gbandi (MPS, D.CM, FIMC, CMC), is the Global Chairman ADC-DN and Contact and Mobilisation Liaison for Delta State, Presidential Campaign Councii (PCC), Directorate of Stakeholders Engagement
