Nafi’u Bala, a former governorship candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in Gombe State and erstwhile national deputy chairman of the party, has declared himself as the interim national chairman of the ADC.
The announcement was made at a press conference held on Wednesday night in Abuja.
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 said.
His declaration comes weeks after a coalition of prominent opposition figures, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party’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.
But 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,” Bala 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.
“In case these individuals choose to ignore our urgent calls to obey our constitutional guidelines and thus remain very obdurate and recalcitrant in their aberrant behaviour, we shall proceed with gusto to challenge these gross acts of impunity in the courts and bring them to justice,” he said.
Bala emphasized 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.
