2027: ADC will be on the ballot, but Atiku may not, says Keyamo as opposition appeals ruling voiding his ticket.
The aviation minister and APC stalwart calls fears that the party will be shut out of the polls ‘misinformation’, insisting only the David Mark faction’s candidates are at risk. Atiku’s camp has appealed, asked INEC to hold off, and says the voters, not the courts, will decide
The Atlantic Digest | Abuja
Abuja — The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has said the African Democratic Congress (ADC) will be on the ballot in the 2027 general elections. But former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, the party’s presidential candidate, and other candidates nominated by the faction led by former Senate President David Mark may not be, he said. Keyamo made the remarks on X on Sunday, three days after a Federal High Court in Abuja nullified the Mark-led leadership of the main opposition party and every decision it had taken, including the primary that produced Atiku as its flag bearer for the presidential election due in January. Keyamo is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and a leading figure in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). He served as spokesman for President Bola Tinubu’s 2023 campaign.
‘For the education of the public, those raising false alarm that the court judgment on ADC means the Party will not be on the ballot are spreading MISINFORMATION,’ Keyamo wrote. ‘The ADC WILL BE ON THE BALLOT. It is the David Mark faction of candidates, including ATIKU ABUBAKAR that MAY NOT be on the ballot (depending on the final judgment of the Supreme Court).’ He then turned on those protesting against the ruling. ‘Therefore, the question we must ask those raising hell is that, are those Nigerians who successfully won their Primaries under the faction of the original owners of the ADC lesser humans or lesser Nigerians than David Mark and Atiku Abubakar?’ he asked.
It was the minister’s second intervention in three days. On Friday, Keyamo said ‘heavens will not fall’ if Atiku is not on the ballot in 2027, and urged politicians to respect court rulings rather than attack judges. ‘You cannot abuse judges and blackmail the judiciary when it doesn’t go your way,’ he said, according to Daily Trust. He cited two Supreme Court precedents in which courts reshaped election outcomes over defects in party processes. In 2019, the court nullified the victories of APC candidates in Zamfara State over irregular primaries and handed the seats to their Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) opponents, a decision Keyamo said Atiku had hailed as a victory for the rule of law. In February 2020, the court voided the election of the APC’s David Lyon as Bayelsa governor on the eve of his inauguration, paving the way for the PDP’s Douye Diri. Both rulings went against Keyamo’s own party.
The judgment at the centre of the row was delivered on Thursday, November 5, by Justice Peter Lifu in suit FHC/ABJ/CS/1819/2025. It was brought by Nafiu Bala Gombe, a former ADC National Deputy Chairman (North-East). He argued that he was entitled to lead the party after the resignation of its former national chairman, Ralph Nwosu, and challenged the July 2025 takeover by a caretaker committee led by Mark, with former Osun governor Rauf Aregbesola as national secretary. The takeover came as opposition figures moved into the ADC to build a coalition against Tinubu. Justice Lifu declared the Mark-led committee illegal, found that it had not emerged through a democratic election as required by Section 82 of the Electoral Act 2022 and Section 223 of the Constitution, and ordered INEC not to recognise decisions of the party’s 99th National Executive Committee meeting. Decisions that flowed from that leadership, including the May 2026 presidential primary won by Atiku, were voided.
The ruling does not deregister the ADC, which is the legal basis for Keyamo’s distinction between the party and its candidates. Its effect on the candidates, however, is sweeping. Gombe’s lawyers have argued that it leaves the party without validly nominated candidates at any level, from the presidency to the state assemblies. Arise News reported that the candidacies of no fewer than 1,503 people could be in doubt. Keyamo’s reference to the ‘original owners’ points to the rival structure that preceded the Mark leadership. His post did not say which candidates that faction had produced or whether INEC had recognised any of them.
The ADC and Atiku have rejected the judgment and moved quickly to challenge it. On Friday, the party filed a notice of appeal and a motion for a stay of execution, signed by its counsel, Shaibu Enejoh Aruwa (SAN), and formally notified INEC. In a statement issued by Phrank Shaibu, Director of Strategic Communication of the ADC Presidential Campaign Council, the party said the stay application had not yet been determined and urged INEC not to take any consequential steps while the appeal was pending. ‘INEC must therefore exercise restraint,’ it said. Filing an appeal does not by itself suspend the judgment. Atiku, in a statement titled ‘Bola Cannot Use the Courts to Escape the People’s Verdict; We Are on the Ballot’, said judicial decisions should not be confused with the will of ordinary Nigerians. He insisted that nothing would stop him contesting and that voters should decide at the ballot box. INEC had not publicly said how it will treat the ruling at the time of publication.
The opposition’s central legal argument is that Justice Lifu’s ruling conflicts with an earlier judgment of a court of equal standing. Justice Musa Liman of the same Federal High Court had dismissed a similar challenge to the Mark leadership in suit FHC/ABJ/CS/1637/2025. According to the ADC, he held that the transfer of leadership from Nwosu to Mark complied with the party’s constitution and noted that the July 29, 2025 NEC meeting at which Mark and Aregbesola emerged was monitored by INEC. The party argues that one judge cannot overturn or vary a subsisting judgment of another judge of coordinate jurisdiction. The ADC campaign council has described the Lifu judgment as academic and overtaken by events.
The party has also questioned the judge’s record in its own affairs. In June, Justice Lifu ordered INEC to deregister the ADC and four other parties: Accord, Action Alliance, Action Peoples Party and Zenith Labour Party. The Court of Appeal stayed that order on June 16, at INEC’s own request, and berated the trial court for delivering judgment despite an appellate order to stay proceedings. In July, it set the judgment aside entirely. ADC spokesman Bolaji Abdullahi said at the time that the appellate court had found the trial judge had concocted evidence, and the ruling was widely reported as a rebuke for ‘judicial rascality’.
The APC has denied any role in the litigation, describing the dispute as an internal ADC matter. The opposition rejects that. After Thursday’s ruling, the ADC accused the ruling party of trying to ‘set Nigeria on fire’, linking the judgment to its large campaign flag-off in Sokoto a day earlier. Atiku called it a calculated attempt to frustrate a campaign that was resonating across the country. Peter Obi, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) also faulted the ruling’s timing, with ten weeks to the vote. Rotimi Amaechi, Atiku’s running mate, warned that the judgment could cause civil war if not properly managed. None of the allegations of APC involvement has been substantiated.
Keyamo’s intervention fits a pattern. As one of the ruling party’s most combative voices, he has repeatedly gone after Atiku, who lost to Tinubu in 2023 on the PDP platform. He has also criticised the former vice-president’s continued use of the national coat of arms, 18 years after leaving office. His insistence that the ADC itself is safe is aimed at a public argument that has gathered force since Thursday: that the ruling amounts to removing the main opposition party from the race, a charge that could damage the credibility of the election at home and abroad. By separating the party from its candidates, Keyamo frames the dispute as a matter of internal legality rather than of political exclusion, and puts the burden on Atiku to win in the courts.
The legal road ahead is short and crowded. Pre-election disputes in Nigeria go from the Federal High Court to the Court of Appeal and finally to the Supreme Court, under strict timelines. Keyamo’s own qualification, that Atiku may be excluded ‘depending on the final judgment of the Supreme Court’, acknowledges that the matter is far from settled. The ADC is separately before the Supreme Court over an earlier Court of Appeal ruling that barred INEC from recognising congresses organised by the Mark-led leadership. With the presidential election set for January 16, 2027, the courts will have to move fast if a final word is to come before Nigerians vote.
For now, the immediate questions are practical. Will the Court of Appeal grant a stay before INEC acts on the judgment? Will INEC keep Atiku’s name, which it had already published as the ADC’s candidate, on its list? And if the ticket is ultimately voided, can the party field any candidate at all, and who would decide? Keyamo’s answer is that the ADC will be on the ballot either way. Atiku’s answer is that he will be on it too. The courts, and possibly the Supreme Court within weeks, will decide which of them is right.
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