On March 12, 2026, a superior court ordered Nigeria’s electoral commission to freeze its recognition of a disputed party leadership. For nineteen days, the Independent National Electoral Commission did the opposite. It only stopped when its chairman was threatened personally with contempt proceedings. What followed — INEC’s April 1 announcement delisting Senator David Mark and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola from its portal as African Democratic Congress National Chairman and National Secretary, respectively — was presented to the public as a measured act of judicial deference. It was not. It was a forced retreat by a commission that had spent nearly three weeks brazenly ignoring an appellate court directive, and which reversed course only when its chairman faced the prospect of being dragged before a court in his own name. KEHINDE ADEGOKE writes.
The Order
On March 12, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, led by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam, dismissed an interlocutory appeal filed by David Mark. In Nigerian appellate procedure, dismissing such an appeal means the lower court’s jurisdiction to hear the substantive matter stands, and crucially, the panel simultaneously issued preservatory orders directing all parties to maintain the status quo ante bellum pending the determination of that substantive suit before the Federal High Court.
The court was explicit. All parties were to refrain from taking any step, or doing any act, capable of foisting a fait accompli on the court or rendering the proceedings before the trial court nugatory.
That order was not addressed to the parties alone. It was the law of the matter. INEC, as the statutory body responsible for recognising party leadership, was bound by it.
The Letters
Four days after the order, on March 16, INEC received formal written notice of it.
Summit Law Chambers, acting for Nafiu Bala Gombe — the ADC Vice-National Chairman who contends he never resigned and is the rightful heir to the chairmanship following the mass resignation of the previous executive — wrote directly to the commission. The letter drew INEC’s attention to the appellate court’s directive and demanded compliance.
On the same date, a second letter arrived, this one from Suleiman Usman SAN & Co., cautioning INEC against recognising Gombe as acting chairman because of the pending Federal High Court suit.
INEC had both letters. It understood precisely where the legal lines we
re drawn. The competing claims were before it in writing. The court’s position was clear.
It proceeded to cross the lines anyway.
The Defiance
Eight days after being formally put on notice — twelve days after the court order — INEC invited David Mark’s group to an official political parties meeting hosted by the commission.
That was March 24.
The following day, March 25, INEC went further. Commission officials monitored a National Executive Committee meeting convened by the Mark faction, lending the institution’s formal imprimatur to a group whose recognition the Court of Appeal had just ordered frozen.
This was not bureaucratic lag. It was not an oversight born of the slow grinding of large institutional machinery. INEC had been notified in writing. Its officials acted. They were invited. They attended. They monitored. Each step was a deliberate act by a commission that had full knowledge of a subsisting court order and chose to behave as though it did not exist.
The Threat
Gombe’s lawyers responded with a letter dated March 27, addressed directly to INEC chairman Prof. Joash Amupitan, SAN.
The letter did not mince words. It accused Amupitan personally of presiding over open defiance of the Court of Appeal. It invoked Section 287(2) of the 1999 Constitution as amended — the provision that mandates compliance with court orders — and served formal notice of contempt proceedings against the INEC chairman himself if the commission did not immediately reverse course.
The demands were specific: remove Mark and Aregbesola from the INEC portal; invalidate the NEC meeting of March 25; cease all correspondence with Mark’s group; and allow Gombe to oversee party affairs pending the court’s final determination.
Until that letter, INEC had not moved. Once the chairman’s personal legal exposure was on the table, the commission acted within four days.
The Retreat
On March 31, INEC convened an emergency meeting. It resolved to comply.
On April 1, the commission issued a public statement announcing the delisting of Mark and Aregbesola. The statement was framed carefully — as a proactive act of judicial deference, an institution honouring its obligations to the rule of law.
There was no mention of the contempt threat that had preceded it. No acknowledgement of the nineteen days of non-compliance. No explanation for why the commission had continued recognising Mark’s faction long after the court had spoken. The announcement read as principal. It was capitulation.
The Questions That Remain
Who within the commission authorised the invitation of March 24?
Who approved the decision to monitor the NEC meeting of March 25?
Was Chairman Amupitan personally aware that his commission was in apparent defiance of a subsisting court order while correspondence to that effect sat in his office?
And if Gombe’s lawyers had never threatened contempt — would INEC have complied at all?
The answers matter because this is not merely a story about one party’s internal dispute. It is a story about whether Nigeria’s electoral commission, the institution charged with upholding the integrity of democratic processes, regards court orders as obligations or as suggestions.
The Underlying Dispute
The ADC crisis itself remains unresolved. The substantive suit — marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1819/2025 — is pending before Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja, where the Court of Appeal has ordered accelerated hearing.
At its core, the case turns on a constitutional question about party succession. When Ralph Okey Nwosu and his entire executive resigned, did Gombe — as the only surviving Vice-National Chairman — automatically assume the chairmanship by operation of the party’s constitution? Or was the NEC meeting of July 29, 2025, which ratified the emergence of Mark and Aregbesola, a legitimate exercise of party authority that superseded any claim of automatic succession?
That question will be settled by the trial court.
What Has Already Been Settled
What requires no further adjudication is the question of INEC’s conduct during those nineteen days.
The enrolled order of the Court of Appeal in CA/ABJ/CV/145/2026 is a public document. INEC’s April 1 statement is a public document. The correspondence between the commission and the contending parties is documented. The dates are on record.
A commission whose constitutional mandate includes upholding the integrity of the electoral process spent 19 days in contempt of a court order. It changed its position after the threat of personal legal action involving the chairman, then announced its compliance with its principles.
The dates speak for themselves. So does the silence in INEC’s April 1 statement — the silence where an explanation should have been.
It should be stressed that the enrolled order of the Court of Appeal in CA/ABJ/CV/145/2026 and INEC’s public statement of April 1, 2026, are on record with this publication.
