The National Publicity Secretary of the African Democratic Congress, Bolaji Abdullahi, says the party has spent more time dealing with court cases than campaigning or building its structures since its emergence as a coalition opposition platform in 2025.
Abdullahi said this during an interview on Arise Television on Thursday.
“The party since the start has been burdened by this avalanche of court cases, to the extent that I like to say that we spent more time in courts than we spent on the campaign ground or trying to build our party structure,” he said.
He, however, said the party had made progress despite the challenges, describing it as a formidable opposition platform.
“But in spite of all these encumbrances, we’ve built a formidable opposition political party. Two, three years ago, I doubt if we’d be having this conversation about the African Democratic Congress.
“But the fact that we’re talking about this now is also a mark of the progress we’ve made since we came on board as a coalition in 2025,” he said.
Abdullahi alleged that the legal challenges were part of efforts by the ruling All Progressive Congress to weaken the opposition ahead of the 2027 general elections.
“We said it at the start that the idea is to discourage opposition and create a situation whereby in 2027, only President Bola Tinubu will be a viable candidate on the ballot.
“That’s the agenda of the ruling party. So everything you’ve seen since then is not so much about the opposition. It’s about what the ruling party is trying to ensure, that they don’t have any real challenge,” he said.
PUNCH Online reports that both the APC and presidency have consistently denied responsibility in ADC’s legal crisis.
Abdullahi maintained that the coalition had followed the necessary procedures before joining the ADC, questioning why the party continued to face legal obstacles.
“People may look at us and say, ‘Oh, why are they not solving their problem?’ But we did everything that we needed to do to go into the African Democratic Congress, and the records are there. Each time they throw these obstacles at us, we wonder what this is all about.
“It’s not about law. It’s not about judiciary, it’s about politics. And that’s why we wonder why some judges are making themselves available to be used for these kinds of things,” he said.
The comments come amid a prolonged leadership crisis in the ADC, which has pitted the faction led by former Senate President David Mark against former Deputy National Chairman, Nafiu Gombe.
The dispute followed the resignation of the party’s former National Chairman, Ralph Nwosu, and the emergence of a caretaker leadership led by Mark in July 2025.
Bala challenged the process, arguing that he was entitled to assume the party’s leadership following Nwosu’s exit.
On November 5, the Federal High Court in Abuja, presided over by Justice Peter Lifu, ruled in favour of Bala, declaring the Mark-led caretaker committee’s emergence illegal and nullifying its actions, including the process that produced former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar as the party’s 2027 presidential candidate.
The court also rejected a purported resignation letter allegedly signed by Bala.
However, ADC rejected the judgment and filed an appeal and maintained that the legal challenge would not stop its political activities.
Reacting to the judgment, Atiku described it as a calculated attempt to weaken his political support in the North and frustrate his presidential ambition.
Also reacting, a lawyer representing the party, Kalu Kalu, said the ruling did not expressly nullify Atiku’s nomination or that of other candidates produced under the Mark-led leadership, arguing that some Nigerians were reading conclusions into the ruling that were not contained in its orders.
The Punch
