Court Verdict on ADC, Four Parties Ignites Political Outcry
A Federal High Court ruling directing the Independent National Electoral Commission to deregister the African Democratic Congress and four other parties has triggered a wave of outrage from opposition figures, who cast the decision as a calculated assault on Nigeria’s multiparty democracy months before the 2027 general elections.
Justice Peter Lifu delivered the judgment on Monday, June 15, 2026, directing INEC to remove the ADC, Action Peoples Party, Action Alliance, Accord Party and Zenith Labour Party from the register of political parties. The suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2637/2026, was filed by the National Forum of Former Legislators.
The plaintiffs anchored their case on Section 225A of the 1999 Constitution as amended and the Electoral Act 2022, arguing that the affected parties failed to win 25 per cent of votes in any state during the presidential poll or secure at least one elective seat at any tier of government in the 2023 elections and subsequent by-elections. Justice Lifu dismissed all the preliminary objections filed by the defendants before ordering INEC to bar the parties from future elections, including the 2027 polls.
The political fallout was immediate. The ruling removes the platform on which former Vice President Atiku Abubakar had hoped to contest the presidency, and it threatens Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke’s re-election bid under the Accord Party in the August 15 governorship election.
Atiku, in a statement by his aide Phrank Shaibu, said the judgment was delivered “despite a clear and subsisting order of the Court of Appeal.” He stated that the appellate court, on May 22, 2026, granted an application staying further proceedings pending the determination of an appeal, describing the new ruling as “a dangerous escalation of authoritarian tactics and a blatant assault on Nigeria’s democracy.”
Adeleke, through his spokesman Olawale Rasheed, insisted Accord “will be on the ballot on August 15th,” while ADC National Chairman David Mark, in a statement by Kola Ologbondiyan, called the judgment “an arrow fired at the hearts of Nigeria’s democracy” and predicted it would be set aside on appeal.
The ADC, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary Bolaji Abdullahi, noted that INEC had in a May counter-affidavit maintained that the party breached no registration requirement and that no legal basis existed for its deregistration. The party warned that excluding it from the ballot was “a direct invitation to anarchy.”
The controversy revives long-running questions over INEC’s deregistration powers. On February 6, 2020, the commission deregistered 74 political parties, reducing the number of registered parties to 18, on the grounds of poor performance in the 2019 general elections. The Supreme Court in March 2022 upheld the deregistration of 22 of those parties, affirming that the electoral body acted within its constitutional mandate. Before the Fourth Alteration introduced Section 225A, INEC had deregistered 39 parties between 2011 and 2013 under the Electoral Act.
Former Obi campaign spokesman Yunusa Tanko warned the government wanted “to set this country ablaze,” while the Social Democratic Party’s Rufus Aiyenigba called it a “recipe for national crisis.” Others, including the Nigeria Democratic Congress’s Osa Director, urged calm, noting the affected parties retain a right of appeal.
With the Court of Appeal expected to revisit the matter and the August governorship poll fast approaching, the dispute is poised to deepen, testing both the hierarchy of courts and the resilience of Nigeria’s party system ahead of 2027.