By Emameh Gabriel
There is an old African parable. The monkey works all day, climbing trees and bending branches, sweating under the sun to gather fruits. When evening comes, the baboon arrives, climbs down from its resting place, and announces that it will now share the harvest. The monkey asks, ‘What did you do?’ The baboon answers, ‘I watched. And watching is work.’
Another parable. The chameleon that wants to leap from one branch to another does not close its eyes. It measures the distance, tests the wind, looks twice at the branch ahead. But if it still falls, it cannot blame the tree.
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) is both the baboon and the chameleon. It did no work. It watched others build. Then it jumped—not walked, not crawled, but lunged—into a leadership takeover with the desperation of a debtor fleeing his creditors. And now that it has landed flat on its back, legs kicking at the air, its leaders are not looking at the cracked branch they grabbed. They are blaming the wind, the sky, the tree, and the man who planted the forest.
Let us call this piece by its true name: a lament for a group of politicians that traded the constitution of a political party for convenience, its rules for impunity, and now wants the nation to weep alongside them.
Just recently, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) did what any law-abiding agency ought to do. It spoke clearly, without ambiguity, without fear or favour. It said: We cannot recognizse any faction of the African Democratic Congress because a recent court judgment has tied our hands. That judgment, from the Court of Appeal, ordered all parties to maintain status quo ante bellum—the state of things exactly as they existed before the war began.
For the avoidance of doubt, let us respect the men and women involved. Professor Amupitan, the INEC Chairman, is not a village scribe who learned law by correspondence. He is a teacher of law. A Professor of Law. A Senior Advocate of Nigeria. When a man of that stature invokes a Latin legal maxim, it is not for theatrical effect. It is because the law bends to no man’s ambition—not even that of a former Senate President who once presided over the National Assembly for eight years.
Senator David Mark, Mr. Peter Obi, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, and Mr. Bolaji Abdullahi are certainly accomplished politicians. They have held high offices. They have signatures on important documents. They have followers who cheer them at every turn. But they cannot teach Professor Yakubu what status quo ante bellum means. That would be like a fisherman trying to instruct a whale on the tides. It is not merely presumptuous. It is absurd.
So why the wailing? Why the press conferences in orange shirts and long faces, looking like mourners at a funeral of their own making? Why the frantic conspiracy theories about President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC)? Why the desperate accusation that INEC has been weaponised by the ruling party?
Simple. The ADC leadership did not do their homework. They did not read their own party constitution. They did not respect their own succession rules. They acted as if the law was a suggestion and the court was a rumour. And now they are suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, crying loudly that the bullet came from Aso Rock.
Let us rewind the tape.
On July 2, 2025, Ralph Nwosu resigned as National Chairman of the ADC at the Yar’Adua Conference Centre in Abuja. On that same day, he handed over the leadership to Senator David Mark. Something changed hands. A baton passed. A transaction occurred. Let no one deny that.
But here is the rub. The ADC constitution, like any serious political party’s constitution in a democracy, does not permit strangers to walk in off the street and claim the throne. There are conditions. There are waiting periods. There are financial membership requirements that must be satisfied for at least one year before any person can assume leadership. These are not suggestions. They are fences. Jump them, and you bleed.
Enter Mr. Nafiu Bala Gombe, the Deputy National Chairman. He said he never resigned. He said the resignation letter dated May 18, 2025, was forged. He claimed all his official communications were conducted on the official letterhead of his office—not on plain paper, not on a torn sheet, not on a napkin. And he insisted that the constitution is crystal clear: when the national chairman vacates office, the deputy national chairman takes over. Not a newcomer. Not a “powerful man” who just arrived from Abuja. Not a former Senate President, however respected. The deputy.
But because Senator David Mark and his group are not men who build political parties from the ground up—they are men who think they can buy or hijack existing structures—they proceeded as if Bala Gombe did not exist. They shared national offices among themselves like a late-night poker game. Minister of this. Chairman of that. Spokesperson for the other. They forgot that in law and in party politics, procedure is not a nuisance. It is the backbone.
And then came the most telling detail. Nineteen days after resigning—nineteen days after he had ceased to be national chairman—Ralph Nwosu was reportedly called back to write INEC claiming that Bala Gombe had resigned back in May. Think about that carefully. A former chairman, after handing over, after stepping down, returns to his former office to write an official letter as if nothing had changed.
That is the culture of impunity dressed in isiagu and speaking good English.
Chinua Achebe wrote in The Trouble with Nigeria: “One of the truest tests of leadership is the ability to recognise a problem before it becomes an emergency.” The ADC leadership failed that test spectacularly. They saw the problem, a legitimate deputy chairman with a credible case and court papers to prove it—and they ignored him. They walked past him. They told themselves that money and connections would silence him. Now the emergency is here, and they are pointing fingers at Tinubu.
The Court Did Not Sleep; The ADC Did
Let us listen to the lawyers who have no stake in this shameful drama. They speak not as politicians but as officers of the court.
