By Ayomide Otitoju
Former Kogi West lawmaker, Senator Dino Melaye, has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Bola Tinubu of engineering the legal crisis rocking the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
Speaking on Thursday, Melaye described the APC as “desperate” and alleged that Tinubu seeks to bypass a democratic election to be “coronated” as Nigeria’s next president in 2027.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wants to be coronated; he doesn’t want an election. He wants a monarchical system, a Kabiyesi mentality, where he would just be coronated,” Melaye said. “What happened yesterday (Wednesday) was definitely motivated by the ruling party. It is not about ADC or one political party; it is about an affront on democracy, and every Nigerian should be concerned that the democracy of this country is about to be destroyed.”
Melaye also claimed there exists a certified copy of Nafiu Gombe’s resignation letter as ADC deputy chairman, arguing that Gombe had no official position in the party when he filed his court case. “He was never deputy national chairman at the time he instituted that case. We have truly certified copies,” he said.
The senator announced that the ADC would hold a world press conference at 2 p.m. Thursday to address the issue.
The controversy follows a March 12 Court of Appeal judgment, after which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared it would no longer accept correspondence from either the David Mark-led or Rafiu Bala-led ADC factions. INEC also said it would refrain from monitoring any meetings, congresses, or conventions of the two groups until the matter before the Federal High Court is resolved, and confirmed the removal of David Mark’s name from its portal.
Bala, also known as Gombe, was ADC vice chairman before the Mark-led caretaker committee assumed control. He had approached the courts to challenge Mark and his colleagues’ takeover of the National Working Committee.
The ADC had been adopted in 2025 as a platform to challenge the ruling APC in the 2027 general elections. Following former chairman Ralph Nwosu’s resignation in July 2025, Mark and former Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola assumed roles as interim national chairman and national secretary, respectively. Gombe had contended that he should automatically have become chairman after Nwosu’s departure.
