The leadership crisis rocking the African Democratic Congress (ADC) suffered yet another setback on Friday after a Federal High Court in Abuja put an indefinite hold on a suit challenging the party’s new leadership structure under former Senate President David Mark.
Justice Emeka Nwite adjourned the case sine die after the plaintiff, an ADC chieftain named Nafiu Bala Gombe, revealed that he had written to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court requesting that the matter be transferred to a different judge.
Gombe’s suit, which also names former Osun State governor Rauf Aregbesola as a defendant, seeks to stop Mark and others from parading themselves as ADC leaders. He argues that their emergence violates both the party’s constitution and the Electoral Act.
At the latest hearing, the plaintiff’s lawyer informed the court that the Supreme Court had already dismissed an appeal filed by Mark and cleared the way for the substantive suit to proceed. But then came the twist: the plaintiff had privately written to the Chief Judge asking for a new judge.
That move infuriated the defence lawyers. They accused the plaintiff of “forum shopping,” “judge shopping,” and attempting to frustrate the accelerated hearing that the higher courts had expressly ordered. One counsel went as far as to call the approach “judicial rascality.”
Justice Nwite, however, ruled that he could not act on a private letter addressed to the Chief Judge without giving all parties a chance to be heard. Doing so, he said, would violate the defendants’ fundamental rights.
Since the letter was not officially before the trial court, and since the Chief Judge had not yet issued any directive, the judge said he had no choice but to adjourn indefinitely. He ordered that the Supreme Court judgment be properly filed, the letter be formally served on the defendants, and everyone await the Chief Judge’s decision.
For now, the ADC leadership tussle remains frozen in legal limbo, with no clear end in sight.
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