The Court of Appeal may have dismissed the appeal filed by the David Mark-led leadership of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in a 2–1 split decision, but the dissenting judgment of Justice Abba Mohammed has exposed significant legal weaknesses in the majority’s verdict.
Justice Mohammed’s minority judgment was anchored on six grounds:
- The dispute was purely an internal affair of the ADC.
He held that the case concerned the internal administration of a political party—a matter that is generally non-justiciable. Consequently, the Federal High Court ought not to have assumed jurisdiction. - The trial court lacked jurisdiction.
Having found that the dispute fell within the internal affairs of the party, Justice Mohammed concluded that the trial court had no legal authority to entertain the suit. In law, where jurisdiction is absent, every order flowing from the proceedings is liable to be set aside. - The respondents lacked the requisite locus standi.
Justice Mohammed observed that the respondents’ own originating summons identified only the 1st respondent as a State Chairman. This, he held, raised serious questions about the legal standing of the remaining respondents to institute the action. - The respondents failed to exhaust the ADC’s internal dispute resolution mechanism.
According to the dissent, there was no evidence that the respondents first explored the remedies provided under the party’s constitution before heading to court. That omission, he held, robbed the trial court of jurisdiction. - There was no proof that the appellants violated any court order.
Justice Mohammed found that nothing before the court showed that the restraining order had been served on or brought to the knowledge of the appellants. - The convention had already been concluded before the restraining order was made.
He noted that the convention in question had already taken place by the time the order was issued, making the allegation of disobedience legally untenable.
These were not minor procedural objections. They were fundamental legal issues that go to the competence of the entire case.
Against this background, the majority judgment leaves room for serious legal scrutiny. Rather than first determining whether the trial court had jurisdiction, whether the respondents had the legal standing to sue, and whether the party’s internal remedies had been exhausted, the majority proceeded to affirm the trial court’s restraining orders.
The dissent suggests that these threshold questions should have been resolved before the court ventured into the substantive issues. If the trial court lacked jurisdiction, as Justice Mohammed concluded, then every consequential order would be open to challenge.
ADC Media Organization
15/07/2026