…Challenges Mark’s leadership
A fresh leadership crisis is brewing in the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as the party’s Deputy National Chairman, Nafi’u Bala Gombe, has announced himself as Interim National Chairman.
Speaking at a press briefing in Abuja yesterday, Gombe accused some former leaders of the ADC of abandoning their constitutional duties and ceding control of the party’s structure to “powerful outsiders” with no stake in the party.
Bala accused the David Mark-led interim leadership of the ADC of hijacking the party through unconstitutional means and warned of impending legal action to challenge what he described as a “total surrender” of the party’s structure to external political actors.
“We wish to draw the attention of all members of our great party and Nigerians at large, to the ongoing acts of political hooliganism being perpetrated by some individuals who were hitherto entrusted with the leadership of the party”, Bala stated.
His declaration comes weeks after a coalition of prominent opposition figures, including former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party (LP)’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, adopted the ADC as a platform to unseat the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2027.
The coalition arrangement was formally announced on July 2 by Ralph Nwosu, founder and pioneer chairman of the ADC, who also revealed the resignation of the National Working Committee (NWC) and endorsed an interim leadership led by Mark.
However, Bala insists the move lacks legal and moral legitimacy. “We are all living witnesses to the show of shame and acts of lawlessness being displayed by these unscrupulous leaders, who, without any qualm or sense of moral restraint, plunged our party into a needless crisis and leadership uncertainty”, he declared.
He condemned what he called an unprecedented and undemocratic transfer of party leadership to “political strangers,” vowing to defend the party’s constitutional order. “The idea of mortgaging the future of our great party, by abdicating the constitutional duties and responsibilities of all elected officers of the party, to some powerful outsiders who never belong to the party, is condemnable”, he added.
Bala described the internal shake-up as a “shoddily rehearsed political melodrama”, saying it would be resisted through both party mechanisms and legal channels.
Bala emphasised that the party’s constitution clearly outlines the processes for leadership succession and that, in line with those provisions, he was now assuming the position of Interim National Chairman.
He called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to “urgently” recognise him as the legitimate leader of the party.
