The fight for Nigeria’s 2027 presidency has shifted sharply from the campaign podium to the courtroom, and the main opposition African Democratic Congress is pushing back hard. The party has challenged the ruling All Progressives Congress to defeat it at the ballot box rather than, in its words, use the courts to force it out of the race.
The challenge came from the Director-General of the ADC Presidential Campaign Council, Senator Austin Akobundu, who said the large crowds that greeted the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, in Sokoto, and his running mate, Rotimi Amaechi, in Kebbi, pointed to a public hungry for an alternative. Akobundu accused the federal government and the APC of trying to shut the party out of the contest through what he called a backdoor judicial process. He urged the governing party, if it was confident of winning, to allow a free and fair poll and let Nigerians choose without intimidation or obstruction.
His comments land against a far graver backdrop. On 5 November, a Federal High Court in Abuja, in a judgment by Justice Peter Lifu, sacked the David Mark-led national leadership of the ADC, nullified the emergence of Rauf Aregbesola as national secretary, and voided the process that produced Atiku’s presidential nomination along with the nominations of other candidates. Party officials say the ruling could unsettle thousands of ADC aspirants for offices at local, state and national levels, not Atiku alone.
The party has rejected the verdict and is fighting it on several fronts. Atiku, who learnt of the ruling on his way to a rally, pressed on with the campaign and declared he would not step down. His camp has filed an appeal and a request for a stay of execution, formally notifying the Independent National Electoral Commission, while his legal team prepares to seek a conclusive ruling at the Supreme Court. The ADC argues that the judgment cannot stand because the apex court, on 30 April, affirmed Mark as national chairman and returned the leadership dispute to the trial court.
At the heart of the party’s case is timing. It insists the ruling arrived just as its campaign gathered momentum, holding up its flag-off in Sokoto against the APC’s event in Kaduna. It is worth noting, though, that the suits troubling the ADC were brought by aggrieved members of the party, not by the APC, and the governing party has not claimed authorship of them. The APC has instead trained its fire on the opposition’s campaign structure, with its spokesman, Felix Morka, dismissing the newly unveiled 69-member council in blunt terms.
Litigation, in truth, is flowing in both directions. Atiku and the ADC are themselves in court seeking to disqualify President Bola Tinubu from the 2027 race over an alleged discrepancy in his National Youth Service Corps discharge certificate, a case the court is due to revisit on 20 November, with the APC and INEC joined as defendants. The party’s own foundations were laid in July 2025, when a coalition of opposition figures adopted it as their platform. Its presidential primary drew more than 2.5 million votes from an estimated 3.1 million members, with Atiku polling 1,855,787 to defeat Amaechi, who scored 509,397, and Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, who managed 180,903.
For now, the position on paper still favours Atiku. The candidate list published by INEC on 31 October named him and Amaechi for the presidency, while the commission’s party directory continued to recognise Mark and Aregbesola as national officers. Whether that holds will turn on the appeal courts, and the commission has signalled caution, having earlier said it would steer clear of the rival factions until the dispute was settled.
The stakes stretch well beyond one party. A politician who finished second in the 2023 election now heads into 2027 with his place on the ballot tied to a chain of appeals that could run close to the polls. Akobundu has asked supporters to stay calm and keep mobilising, insisting the people’s verdict must be delivered at the ballot. Whether the courts will let that verdict be tested is the question now hanging over the opposition’s campaign.