ADC's Legal Turmoil Deepens: Supreme Court Battle Looms Over Primaries and Congresses

The Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, has affirmed a Federal High Court judgment that restrained the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from recognizing or participating in state congresses organized by committees appointed by the Senator David Mark-led caretaker leadership of the African Democratic Congress (ADC). A three-member panel of justices, in a split decision of two-to-one, upheld the restraining order initially issued on April 29, 2006, by Justice Joyce Abdulmalik. The appellate court further upheld the order preventing the Mark-led executives from interfering with the tenure and functions of the party’s elected state executives.

Justice Okon Abang, delivering the majority judgment, held that the responsibility for conducting state congresses of political parties rests with elected state executive committees, not the national leadership. He stated that the appellant breached Section 223(1)(a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, thereby giving the trial court jurisdiction to entertain the suit. The majority judgment dismissed the appellant's complaint that the suit was an internal party affair, declaring the appointment of the caretaker committee by the ADC for national convention as unlawful, unconstitutional, null, and void, especially when the tenure of the state chairmen subsisted. Justices Abang and Donatus Okorowo formed the majority, barring INEC from acknowledging the outcome of congresses held by the Mark-led leadership.

Conversely, the presiding Justice, Abba Mohammed, issued a dissenting judgment, arguing that the case bordered on a non-justiciable internal affair of a political party and that the trial court was wrong to have assumed jurisdiction. Justice Mohammed described both the majority decision and the trial court's judgment as