The Supreme Court of Nigeria on Tuesday reserved judgment in an appeal filed by David Mark over a leadership tussle in the African Democratic Congress, a five-member panel led by Mohammed Garba said after hearing arguments and fixed a date for judgment.
Mark, who is leading a faction within the ADC, lodged the appeal registered as SC/CV/180/2026 to challenge the March 12 judgment of the Court of Appeal, saying the appellate court exceeded its jurisdiction by intervening in the party’s internal affairs.
Through his counsel, Jubril Okutepa, Mark argued that disputes relating to party leadership are non-justiciable and asked the Supreme Court to restrain the Independent National Electoral Commission from recognising any leadership outside his faction pending the determination of the appeal. He also prayed the court to stop INEC from making changes to the party’s leadership structure and sought an order staying proceedings in a related suit before the Federal High Court in Abuja.
The appeal arises from a chain of earlier rulings. On March 12 the Court of Appeal dismissed Mark’s appeal against a September 4, 2025 interim decision at the Federal High Court. That earlier suit, FHC/ABJ/CS/1819/2025, was filed by Nafiu Bala, who said he never resigned as national vice-chairman and maintained he ought to have assumed leadership in line with the party constitution after Ralph Nwosu’s exit as national chairman.
Bala instituted the federal high court action on September 2, 2025, seeking to restrain recognition of the Mark-led executives and to compel recognition of himself as acting national chairman. He later declared himself national chairman and filed motions asking the court to stop the party from holding meetings, congresses or conventions while the dispute played out. At the September 4 hearing, Justice Emeka Nwite directed that the respondents, including INEC, be put on notice to show cause why the ex parte motion should not be granted.
Mark told the Supreme Court that the federal high court lacked jurisdiction to continue with Bala’s suit and that the Court of Appeal’s March 12 decision had improperly intruded on internal party affairs. The respondents in the apex court appeal include Nafiu Bala, the African Democratic Congress, Rauf Aregbesola, the Independent National Electoral Commission and Ralph Nwosu; other respondents urged the Supreme Court to dismiss Mark’s case.
Notably, INEC did not file any process in support of or against the appeal at the high court or at the Supreme Court hearing, leaving the electoral commission absent from the procedural fight over which leadership it should recognise. The Court of Appeal had earlier ordered parties to maintain the status quo ante bellum in a suit instituted by aggrieved members of the party, a direction that now sits alongside competing interim orders and parallel proceedings.
The dispute has carried technical and practical consequences: Mark is asking the apex court to bar courts and INEC from altering who is treated as the party’s executives while the appeal runs; Bala insists he never resigned and that the party constitution required him to assume acting leadership after Nwosu’s exit. The legal knot combines questions about justiciability, the proper reach of courts into party constitution matters, and when an electoral commission may be ordered to recognise one faction over another.
With the Supreme Court having reserved judgment after Tuesday’s hearing, the central question for the party and for INEC is whether the apex court will accept Mark’s contention that internal party leadership disputes are non-justiciable and therefore outside the courts’ proper remit. A ruling for Mark would sharply limit lower-court intervention and could bar orders compelling INEC to recognise one set of officers over another; a ruling against him would leave the lower-court pathway open and sustain the series of interlocutory directions already issued.
Round Time News has previously covered the case and its procedural turns, including the earlier notice from the federal high court; readers tracking how the judiciary frames the boundary between political parties and courts can follow developments here and in related pieces such as Adc News: Supreme Court Reserves Judgment in David Mark's Leadership Appeal and Sauer Presses Citizenship Domicile Theory Before Supreme Court.
