APC Pushes for ADC Deregistration as 2027 Political Tensions Rise in Nigeria
Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress has escalated its confrontation with the opposition African Democratic Congress by urging the Independent National Electoral Commission to deregister the party ahead of the 2027 general elections, opening a fresh political and legal dispute over the limits of electoral regulation, the future of opposition alliances, and the boundaries of INEC’s constitutional authority. The demand was made publicly by APC National Secretary Senator Ajibola Basiru during an interview on Arise Television and was reinforced in subsequent comments from the party as a row over ADC’s internal crisis and INEC’s role gathered momentum on Friday, April 3, and Saturday, April 4, 2026.
Basiru’s argument was direct. He said Nigeria’s ballot should not be crowded with what he described as irrelevant or unviable parties and maintained that ADC no longer possesses the electoral strength required to justify continued registration. Reports of the interview and follow-up APC statements show that he framed the call not as an act of political suppression but as an attempt to compel compliance with constitutional provisions governing party survival. The APC’s position is that parties which repeatedly fail to win elections or satisfy legal requirements should not remain indefinitely on the register merely to occupy ballot space.
The controversy matters because the ADC is not just any fringe party at the moment. It has become entangled in an increasingly visible leadership struggle and broader opposition calculations ahead of 2027. The party has recently been associated with efforts by opposition figures to reposition themselves in advance of the next general election, but those efforts have been complicated by a dispute over who legitimately controls the organisation. INEC Chair Joash Amupitan said on Friday that the commission had decided to stop engaging with either faction of the ADC after the Court of Appeal issued preservative orders directing parties to maintain the status quo ante bellum and avoid actions that could foist a fait accompli on the trial court.
That internal conflict sits at the heart of the current storm. According to Premium Times, the leadership dispute arose after former vice national chairman Nafiu Bala challenged the emergence of former Senate President David Mark as ADC national chairman, arguing that he, Bala, should occupy the post after the resignation of Ralph Nwosu. The dispute has since spilled into the courts and into the public arena, with ADC figures accusing INEC of partisanship and with the APC dismissing those accusations as an attempt to externalise a crisis it says is self-inflicted. Channels Television and other reports show the ruling party rejecting claims that President Bola Tinubu or the APC are orchestrating ADC’s troubles, while insisting the party’s crisis is rooted in its own internal contradictions.
The legal question, however, is more complicated than the political rhetoric. INEC’s 2022 Regulations and Guidelines for Political Parties state that the commission may deregister a political party that breaches registration conditions or fails to win the prescribed seats or vote threshold under Section 225A of the Constitution. The regulations also outline procedures for verification, notice and publication before deregistration takes effect. That means Basiru’s call does rest on an existing constitutional and regulatory framework. Yet the existence of that framework does not mean INEC is automatically moving in that direction, nor does it mean deregistration can be done casually in the middle of a volatile internal party dispute.
There is also a crucial factual point: as of Saturday, April 4, ADC remained on INEC’s official list of registered political parties. The commission’s website still lists the African Democratic Congress among recognised parties, and INEC only last month published a notice relating to court-ordered ADC substitute candidates for the February 2026 FCT Area Council elections. That is significant because it shows that, notwithstanding the current political attacks and legal controversies, the commission continues to treat ADC as an existing registered party in its formal public records.
The background to APC’s latest push includes a separate court case that predates Basiru’s television remarks. A Federal High Court in Abuja has been hearing a suit filed by the Incorporated Trustees of the National Forum of Former Legislators seeking to compel the deregistration of ADC and several other parties, including Accord Party, Zenith Labour Party and Action Alliance, over alleged constitutional breaches. Court reporting in March showed the case was being accelerated, while ADC and other affected parties challenged both the substance of the suit and the identity under which the plaintiffs approached the court. That existing litigation means the issue of deregistration is already before the judiciary, further narrowing the space for any abrupt administrative action by INEC.
The APC has meanwhile tried to present its position as a defense of order rather than an attack on pluralism. Guardian reported that Basiru said Nigeria still has 19 registered political parties and stressed that President Tinubu lacks constitutional power to deregister any party or interfere directly in their internal affairs. In effect, the ruling party is arguing that the matter should be resolved through constitutional mechanisms and by INEC, not by executive fiat. But in practical politics, the optics are difficult to separate from the moment. The call comes as opposition actors search for viable platforms, as ADC battles a public legitimacy crisis, and as accusations of a creeping effort to weaken non-APC forces intensify.
What happens next will likely depend less on rhetoric than on process. INEC is now balancing at least three pressures at once: a live internal struggle within ADC, a court order requiring caution over the status quo, and a broader legal environment that already provides grounds and procedures for deregistration where constitutional conditions are breached. For now, the commission has not announced any move to remove ADC from the register. But Basiru’s demand has sharpened a question that will only grow louder as 2027 approaches: whether Nigeria’s electoral system is entering a period of genuine party rationalisation, or a more dangerous phase in which legal instruments are increasingly folded into the hard contest over who gets to remain politically visible at all.
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Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Gabriel Osa
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