On this week’s episode of The Rundown, we asked what the nullification of Atiku Abubakar’s ADC candidacy means for opposition politics and the choices available to Nigerians in 2027. The answer is uncomfortable: the courts are doing what the ballot box was supposed to do — deciding who gets to run.
The judgment came on a Thursday, four days after Atiku launched his campaign in Sokoto. Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court in Abuja declared the David Mark-led caretaker committee of the African Democratic Congress illegal, voided its decisions, and cancelled the primary that produced Atiku as the party’s presidential candidate . The suit had been filed by Nafiu Bala Gombe, a former deputy national chairman of the ADC, who argued that with the resignation of former chairman Ralph Nwosu, he was constitutionally entitled to lead the party.
However, Atiku’s response was defiant. “I am in this race. I am not going anywhere. We will be on the ballot,” he said in a statement titled “Bola Cannot Use the Courts to Escape the People’s Verdict” . He accused the Tinubu administration of using court manoeuvres to weaken the opposition and push Nigeria towards a one-party state.
Meanwhile, defiance is not a legal strategy. And the legal reality is that Atiku’s 2027 ambition now depends on an appeal, a stay of execution, and ultimately the Supreme Court.
The Pattern That Should Worry Nigerians
You see, Atiku’s case is not isolated. It is the latest entry in a pattern that has seen opposition parties battered in courtrooms across the country.
However, a Lagos-based lawyer, Olalekan Festus Ojo, said no fewer than seven of Nigeria’s 21 registered political parties were entangled in active court cases ahead of 2027, describing the trend as “the dangerous judicialisation of opposition politics” . The Labour Party has been hobbled by parallel leadership structures. The PDP has been weighed down by rival factions. The New Nigeria Peoples Party has faced its own internal disputes. And the NDC, Peter Obi’s platform, saw a court set aside its registration over a logo dispute before a stay of execution halted enforcement.
Furthermore, the Awka-based lawyer Chibunna Okoli-Akirika warned that the court battles could “dismantle opposition political parties” ahead of the general elections, describing the ADC judgment as “early warning signs of a looming wider political storm”.
“Today, it is ADC, tomorrow it could be any other party or individual,” he said.
The Legal Trap That Was Always There
However, what makes the ADC case particularly instructive is that it may not be a story of political persecution at all. It may be a story of opposition incompetence.
Also, Kabir Akingbolu, a political affairs analyst, argued that the judgment was a direct result of internal party overreach. The court, he said, rightly voided the caretaker committee structure because politicians cannot bypass proper legal procedures and party registers to hijack control overnight.
Additionally, the distinction matters. The Supreme Court recently restored provisions of the Electoral Act 2026 requiring parties to submit membership registers to INEC at least 21 days before primaries, and to use only that register for the exercise . Parties that ignored these requirements created their own vulnerabilities. The ADC’s caretaker committee, according to the court, was one such vulnerability.
This is the uncomfortable truth at the heart of the opposition’s courtroom losses: some of them are self-inflicted. When parties assemble coalitions through shortcuts, bypass internal democracy and hand control to caretaker committees, they build legal foundations that cannot withstand scrutiny. The courts are not always the weapon. Sometimes they are simply the mirror.
The Question The Rundown Posed
Meanwhile, this week on The Rundown, we asked: could the repeated legal battles within opposition parties weaken the possibility of a strong alternative to the ruling party in 2027?
Sadly, the answer is already visible. While the APC consolidates its structures, the opposition is spending its energy, resources and political capital fighting itself and defending its existence in court . The ruling party enters the 2027 cycle with a relatively unified front against a fractured and demoralised opposition.
Okoli-Akirika’s advice was blunt: opposition leaders who placed second, third and fourth in 2023 should “quickly fuse their structures into a single political bloc” before the courts do the fragmentation for them.
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But fusion requires trust. And trust is precisely what the courtroom battles have eroded.
What Atiku’s Fate Tells Us
However, Atiku may yet survive. His campaign has appealed and applied for a stay of execution, and his spokesman Paul Ibe insists he will be on the ballot on January 16, 2027 . The Supreme Court may rule in his favour. The ADC may field candidates through its original leadership structure, as Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo has suggested.
Furthermore, even if Atiku wins his appeal, the damage is done. The uncertainty has cost him weeks of campaign momentum. It has reinforced the perception that opposition candidates cannot be trusted to manage their own parties, let alone the country. And it has sent a message to every other opposition platform: the courts are watching, and your paperwork had better be in order.
Lastly, the ballot box was supposed to be where Nigerians decide who leads them. In 2027, the courts are deciding who gets to be on it.
This article is tied to this week’s episode of The Rundown, where we examined the ADC court ruling alongside the Zamfara ambush, the emergency healthcare bill, the President’s revised borrowing request and INEC’s flagged voter records. Watch the full episode on YouTube.