A Federal High Court in Abuja has adjourned a lawsuit over the ADC’s leadership crisis indefinitely after the plaintiff caught opposing counsel off guard with a surprise request to have the case transferred to a different judge.
Justice Emeka Nwite, presiding over the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1819/2025, ordered a sine die adjournment, a legal term meaning the matter is suspended without a fixed date for resumption, after the plaintiff’s counsel disclosed that a formal letter had already been dispatched to the chief judge of the Federal High Court seeking the case’s transfer.
The ruling effectively puts one of Nigeria’s more politically charged intra-party disputes on ice, at least until the judiciary’s administrative machinery responds.
The case has its roots in a bitter power struggle that erupted within the ADC following the dramatic emergence of former Senate President David Mark and ex-Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola in the party’s leadership structure.
For a relatively minor opposition party, the names involved carry enormous political weight, and the stakes, both for the party’s future direction and its electoral viability, are considerable.
What began as an internal squabble over the soul of the ADC has since escalated into a full-blown courtroom war, threading its way through multiple layers of Nigeria’s judicial hierarchy and consuming significant legal and political capital along the way.
Counsel for the plaintiff, Luka Musa Haruna, arrived in court armed with what appeared to be a decisive development: a Supreme Court ruling, handed down on April 30, 2026, that dismissed an interlocutory appeal filed by Mark’s camp and set aside a Court of Appeal order that had been staying proceedings in the matter.
“The Supreme Court found the appeal lacked merit,” Haruna told the court, a statement that, on its face, signaled that the path to a full trial was now clear and unobstructed.
Yet in the very next breath, Haruna disclosed that rather than push forward to trial, his client had, on May 4, 2026, just four days after that Supreme Court victory, written to the chief judge seeking to have the case moved to another judge entirely.
He urged the court to stand down and await administrative direction from the chief judge’s office.
Having just won at the apex court, the plaintiff’s decision to seek a change of judge rather than press the accelerated hearing that the appellate courts had ordered raised immediate questions about litigation strategy and handed the defense a ready-made objection.
Opposing counsel were swift and pointed in their condemnation. Realwan Okpanachi, appearing for the first defendant, told the court that the defense had received no formal notification whatsoever of the transfer application, characterizing it as a deliberate ambush designed to stall proceedings.
Sulaiman Usman, counsel for the second defendant, went further, deploying language that cut to the heart of the allegation, calling the move “forum shopping and judge shopping.” The phrase, familiar to legal practitioners, implies a calculated attempt by a litigant to seek out a more favorable judicial forum or bench rather than accept the luck of the draw. It is an allegation that courts across jurisdictions treat with deep skepticism.
Both defense counsel argued that the request was a delay tactic, and a particularly cynical one at that, coming immediately on the heels of a Supreme Court ruling that had cleared the way for accelerated proceedings the appellate courts had expressly ordered.
Caught between a plaintiff requesting a pause and defendants demanding to press ahead, Justice Nwite chose the path of procedural caution. He ruled that the court could not act on any correspondence from the Chief Judge’s office without first affording all parties the opportunity to be heard on the matter; to do otherwise, he reasoned, would be to violate the foundational constitutional principle of fair hearing.
The matter was adjourned indefinitely, with Justice Nwite indicating that further proceedings would be contingent on two things: the arrival of the Supreme Court’s formal judgment records and any directive that may come from the chief judge’s office regarding the transfer request.
The indefinite adjournment leaves the ADC’s leadership question dangling at a moment when Nigerian political parties are already maneuvering ahead of future electoral cycles.
With Mark and Aregbesola, two figures with significant political networks and name recognition at the center of the dispute, the resolution of this matter carries implications beyond the courtroom.
For now, the case sits in a kind of judicial limbo: the Supreme Court has spoken, the lower court is waiting, and the chief judge’s office holds the next move.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
The ADC leadership dispute involving political heavyweights David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola remains unresolved after a Federal High Court in Abuja adjourned the case indefinitely on Friday.
Despite a significant Supreme Court victory on April 30 that cleared the way for trial, the plaintiff undermined that momentum by immediately requesting a change of judge, a move the defense condemned as deliberate delay tactics.
A case that should be moving forward is standing still, and the question of who legitimately leads the ADC hangs in the balance, a casualty of courtroom maneuvering that appears designed to delay rather than resolve.
