By Hassan Gimba
In a judgment delivered on Thursday, November 5, 2026, Justice Peter Odo Lifu of the Abuja High Court declared the Senator David Mark-led Caretaker Committee of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) illegal. The committee organised the primary election that produced Atiku Abubakar as the party’s presidential flag bearer.
Justice Lifu ruled that the David Mark-led committee was illegally constituted and that all actions taken under its watch, including selecting Atiku Abubakar and submitting 471 candidates for the 2027 elections, were null and void.
Nafiu Bala Gombe, the party’s former National Deputy Chairman (North-East), had instituted the suit, questioning the circumstances under which the Senator Mark-led committee assumed the party’s leadership.
He argued that, following the resignation of the former National Chairman, Chief Ralph Nwosu, he was qualified to assume the party’s leadership.
Predictably, Atiku and the ADC leadership have rejected the judgment, describing it as an attempt by political opponents, particularly the APC-led Federal Government, to weaken the opposition. They have vowed to challenge the ruling at the Court of Appeal and seek a stay of execution.
Rotimi Amaechi also disclosed that senior party leaders had spoken with Atiku and David Mark, urging them to appeal for calm among supporters and prevent any breakdown of law and order.
For its part, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), through its chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, and spokesperson, Mohammed Haruna, said it would not act on media reports.
The commission explained that it had yet to receive the Certified True Copies (CTCs) of the Federal High Court judgment and would formally review the matter at its next meeting.
INEC had previously recognised the David Mark-led structure based on an earlier Supreme Court decision. It maintained that it would abide by any further legally binding court orders or stay of execution.
This is not the first time Justice Lifu has attracted attention over his handling of a politically sensitive case.
In June 2026, he delivered a judgment ordering the deregistration of the African Democratic Congress and four other political parties, despite a May 22, 2026, Court of Appeal order directing a stay of proceedings in the case.
In a unanimous decision led by Justice A. B. Mohammed, the appellate court subsequently stayed the execution of Justice Lifu’s order. It strongly criticised his decision to proceed despite the subsisting appellate directive.
The court described his action as “a brazen violation of the hierarchy of the court and the 1999 Constitution”, “the highest form of judicial impertinence” and an exhibition of “judicial rascality”. It also noted that Supreme Court precedents consider a judge who acts in such a manner unfit for the bench.
Yet, he remains on the bench, dispensing judgments. The National Judicial Council (NJC), which must have received petitions concerning his conduct, apparently has its own reasons for allowing matters to remain as they are.
These developments bring to mind the events of June 1993, when an election adjudged the best and freest in our nation’s history was scuttled.
But the story did not begin on June 12, the day of the election, or even on June 23, when it was annulled. Such stories often begin long before the defining moment.
The late Senator Arthur Nzeribe, founder of the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), was a central figure in the campaign that culminated in the annulment of the June 12 election. Nzeribe had represented the Orlu Senatorial District between October and December 1983 on the platform of the Nigeria People’s Party (NPP) during the Second Republic.
To put the events in perspective, the ABN emerged after the General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida regime abolished all political parties and established two government-created national parties in 1991: the National Republican Convention (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP). General Babangida described them as parties leaning “a little to the right” (NRC) and “a little to the left” (SDP), respectively. He had the American Republican and Democratic parties in mind.
The New York Times described the ABN as “a lobbying group of wealthy businessmen, politicians and military officers who had led a highly visible campaign urging General Babangida to remain in office at least four more years”.
Although the association claimed to have millions of members, its known leaders included Arthur Nzeribe, Brigadier-General Halliru Akilu and Abimbola Davies.
A report by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada stated: “The primary objective of the ABN was to keep Ibrahim Babangida in power and maintain the military administration that has governed Nigeria for so long.”
True to that objective, the ABN mounted billboards in Abuja bearing the message, “Four More Years”, urging Babangida to remain in power for another four-year term.
“The intensity of the ABN’s pro-government campaigns led many observers to conclude that the federal military government was behind the activities of the association,” another report stated.
After years of military rule, Babangida knew that remaining in office without a credible promise to return the country to civilian rule could cost him his position, as had happened to General Yakubu Gowon.
He therefore promised Nigerians that he would hand over power to an elected civilian president on August 27, 1993.
To facilitate the transition, he established the National Electoral Commission (NEC) and appointed Professor Humphrey Nwosu as its chairman.
The presidential election, scheduled for June 12, 1993, pitted Chief MKO Abiola of the SDP against Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the NRC.
However, two days before the election, members of the ABN approached the Abuja High Court, seeking an order restraining NEC from conducting it.
On the eve of the election, June 11, Justice Bassey Ikpeme, now late, ordered its suspension. NEC, however, ignored the order and proceeded with the election, relying on Decree 13 of 1993, which ousted the courts’ jurisdiction in matters capable of frustrating the transition-to-civil-rule programme.
To inspire public confidence and reassure Nigerians of his commitment to the seemingly endless transition programme, Babangida had promulgated a decree ousting the courts’ jurisdiction in any suit seeking to stop the forthcoming presidential election.
His second-in-command, the late Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, had made it a habit to emphasise the regime’s fidelity to its promise, frequently citing the ouster decree as proof of its sincerity.
But as election results began to trickle in, ABN members returned to the Abuja High Court, this time seeking an order to stop their further announcement.
Justice Dahiru Saleh, the Chief Judge, handled the matter and did not assign it to another judge.
Although the suit was a Motion on Notice, which ordinarily required the other party, NEC, to be heard, Saleh decided to hear it ex parte in Chambers and ordered that further announcement of the results be halted.
He reasoned that NEC ought not to have conducted the election in the first place.
The commission complied with the order but proceeded to the Court of Appeal to challenge it.
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“In that appeal, we attached all the results of the election…showing that Abiola overwhelmingly won the election,” Nwosu wrote in his book, Laying the Foundation for Nigeria’s Democracy: My Account of June 12, 1993, Presidential Election and Its Annulment.
On June 23, 1993, a day after NEC filed its appeal, Babangida annulled the election and suspended the commission.
He had, in his opinion, a cogent reason for taking that decision.
“These steps were taken to save our judiciary from being ridiculed and politicised locally and internationally,” Babangida said.
God, Spare Us Another June 12
We saw how political interests, questionable court orders and the actions of powerful individuals combined to undermine an election that had given Nigerians hope.
We saw how the judiciary became entangled in a political crisis, how court orders were deployed in ways that threatened the democratic process and how those entrusted with protecting the transition to civilian rule ultimately presided over its collapse.
Today, more than three decades later, we are once again confronted with developments that raise troubling questions about the relationship between the judiciary, political interests and the survival of our democracy.
The circumstances may be different, the actors may have changed, and the methods may no longer be the same. But the lessons of June 12 remain relevant.
Democracy cannot survive where judicial authority is perceived to be vulnerable to political manipulation, where court orders are disregarded or selectively enforced, or where the pursuit of political advantage takes precedence over constitutionalism and the rule of law.
The judiciary must remain an institution that inspires confidence, not one that deepens political uncertainty.
We have paid dearly for the events of 1993. We must not allow history to repeat itself.
God, we have seen June 12. We pray that we will never witness another episode in which our democracy is scuttled by different actors, employing different methods.
Hassan Gimba, ANIPR, is the Publisher and CEO of Neptune Prime.
