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| The Federal High Court headquarters in Abuja, photographed on 29 July 2026. Jummy001 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. |
The Independent National Electoral Commission says it will determine its response to the judgment against the African Democratic Congress leadership only after obtaining and examining the court’s certified decision.
The position leaves the commission awaiting the official record of a ruling that invalidated the David Mark-led caretaker leadership and decisions taken under it, including nominations for the 2027 general elections.
Mohammed Haruna, INEC’s national commissioner responsible for information and voter education, said the commission could not base its actions on accounts of proceedings published in the media.
“We can’t take a position until we see the judgment ourselves,” he said.
Justice Peter Lifu delivered the judgment at the Federal High Court in Abuja on 5 November. The case arose from a challenge by former ADC deputy national chairman Nafiu Bala Gombe, who argued that he should have assumed the chairmanship following Ralph Nwosu’s resignation.
The ruling affected the process that produced former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar as the party’s presidential candidate. Atiku selected former Rivers State governor Rotimi Amaechi as his running mate.
The ADC subsequently announced that it had appealed and applied for a stay of execution. Its lawyers notified INEC of both filings in a letter dated 6 November and asked the commission to suspend further action. The party said the stay application had not been heard when it submitted the letter.
INEC has also rejected reports that it removed Atiku and Amaechi from its online portal, saying it had neither reviewed the certified judgment nor determined its next steps.
Discussing the developments on Arise News’ Political Brief, the broadcaster’s director of news and politics editor, Sumner Sambo, warned against allowing disputes over political participation to develop into wider instability.
He argued that candidates should compete for public support and that voters should determine the outcome. Referring to the political crises of the First Republic, he cautioned against exclusion becoming a source of national tension.
Amaechi has separately warned that the judgment could provoke unrest, while saying senior ADC figures had discussed how to prevent an angry response from supporters. He said he, Atiku and Mark agreed to urge calm and pursue the party’s challenge through the courts.
The APC has denied involvement in the ADC dispute, describing the litigation as a disagreement among members of the opposition party.
Campaign security also featured in the discussion following violence during a procession supporting Nigeria Democratic Congress presidential candidate Peter Obi in Asaba, Delta State.
The state police command confirmed that one person died and five others sustained injuries in the incident on Nnebisi Road on Saturday, 7 November. Police spokesperson Bright Edafe said officers took the injured to hospital, reinforced security and began investigating the circumstances and those responsible.
Obi condemned the violence and demanded an investigation that would hold perpetrators accountable regardless of their political affiliation.
“No political aspiration is worth the life of a Nigerian,” he said.
Sambo said security agencies needed to protect people attending political events and prevent disagreements from resulting in deaths. He rejected any suggestion that describing an incident as an internal political dispute reduced the seriousness of the loss of life.
He also urged political organisations to consider how their rhetoric could affect supporters during an increasingly contentious campaign.
For the governing APC, retired General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma’s endorsement of President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid provided a separate development in its efforts to expand support across the Middle Belt.
The former defence minister backed another term for Tinubu and cited what he considered fair treatment of Christians in government appointments. His endorsement followed engagements between the president and leaders associated with the region.
Sambo described Danjuma’s support as politically significant but questioned how far it would influence voters confronting hunger, insecurity and displacement.
He said the retired general retained influence among political, traditional and religious leaders, particularly in Benue, Plateau and Nasarawa, as well as parts of the North-East, including his home state of Taraba.
However, he assessed Danjuma’s influence as less pronounced in Kwara, Kogi and Niger. He cautioned against assuming that the wider North-Central electorate would respond uniformly to the endorsement.
Sambo also discussed criticism of the religious composition of the delegation associated with the outreach to Tinubu. He noted that Muslim and Christian communities both formed part of the region’s electorate and said its political interests could not be reduced to a single religious constituency.
Recalling Obi’s support in minority communities during the 2023 election, he said Tinubu had since worked to address some political leaders’ reservations about the APC’s Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket.
He pointed to the appointment of Defence Minister Christopher Musa and efforts to bring Southern Kaduna leaders into the state’s political mainstream as elements of that outreach.
Sambo suggested that discussions about restructuring, additional states and local governments, and the North-Central’s place in future power-sharing arrangements could also influence political negotiations.
He presented those issues as possible considerations behind changing alliances, rather than evidence of a concluded agreement with the president. He also cautioned Middle Belt leaders to consider how their decisions might affect relations with other northern political constituencies beyond the 2027 election.
The economy remained another source of disagreement between the president and his opponents.
At a campaign rally in Port Harcourt, Tinubu blamed Atiku and previous officeholders for problems his administration said it was addressing. He defended his reforms and said the government was settling inherited obligations, including pension and gratuity liabilities.
“When those people talk about hunger, remember that I am cleaning up the mess they created,” Tinubu said in a presidential statement issued after the rally.
Sambo criticised the emphasis on assigning blame. He said Nigerians needed evidence showing the poverty levels the administration inherited, the effects of its interventions and what it proposed to achieve if returned to office.
Saying “we've gone past that politics”, he urged the president’s speechwriters to give greater attention to measurable improvements in living conditions.
The presidential campaign of Seyi Makinde, candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement, also challenged Tinubu’s account of economic recovery. It accused the administration of seeking credit for improvements in the naira after implementing policies it said had contributed to the currency’s decline.
Another dispute concerned the proposed Ibom Deep Sea Port in Akwa Ibom State, following Tinubu’s announcement of approval during his visit to Uyo.
The NDC questioned the announcement, arguing that the project had already secured Federal Executive Council approval under former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Its national publicity secretary, Osa Director, cited the council’s decision of 16 December 2020 concerning the first phase of the proposed $4.6 billion project. The party also recalled Tinubu’s undertaking during the 2023 campaign to deliver the port.
The earlier approval appears in the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission’s 2020 annual report. The regulator records that FEC approved the project on 16 December 2020, following procurement, negotiations and certification work.
The report describes the port as a joint undertaking involving the federal government, Akwa Ibom State and private investors.
Sambo welcomed scrutiny of the project’s history, saying it directed the campaign towards a public infrastructure commitment that Nigerians could assess.
He argued that the port’s importance extended beyond Akwa Ibom because it could provide additional maritime capacity and reduce pressure on facilities in Lagos. He said successive administrations’ promises needed to translate into implementation.
He also linked Tinubu’s receptions in Akwa Ibom and Rivers to expectations of federal delivery in the South-South. Alongside infrastructure, he urged the president, if re-elected, to consider appointing a substantive petroleum minister from the region.
On the seaport, Sambo said Akwa Ibom could not carry the undertaking alone. He called for sustained cooperation between the state and federal governments to move the project beyond announcements.