A Federal High Court in Abuja has declared that a purported resignation letter allegedly signed by former African Democratic Congress Deputy National Chairman, Nafiu Bala, was not genuine.

The ruling was delivered by Justice Peter Lifu on November 5, 2026, in a judgment that has deepened the leadership crisis rocking the party. The court held that the document, which the party relied upon to claim that Bala voluntarily left his position, could not be trusted as proof of resignation.

Justice Lifu said he carefully compared the signature on the disputed letter with the signatures on Bala’s witness statements on oath filed in the suit. After the comparison, he found material differences between the signatures, concluding that they could not reasonably be regarded as one and the same signature.

He ruled that certification of a document alone does not settle a genuine dispute about whether the person named in it actually signed it. The court was therefore required to examine the evidence before reaching a conclusion.

The judge stated clearly that he was not satisfied that the document represented the genuine act of Bala. He therefore rejected it as reliable proof that Bala voluntarily resigned from his position as Deputy National Chairman of the ADC. The rejection struck at the heart of the defence put forward by the faction led by former Senate President David Mark, which had maintained that Bala had resigned and had lost the standing to challenge the party leadership.

Bala had approached the court in September 2025 to challenge the emergence of David Mark as national chairman and Rauf Aregbesola as national secretary, following the party’s 99th National Executive Committee meeting held on July 29, 2025. He told the court that he was elected Deputy National Chairman on October 12, 2022, for a four year tenure expected to expire on October 11, 2026. He argued that the process that produced the new leadership breached the party constitution and the Electoral Act.

The Mark led faction had opposed the suit, arguing that Bala voluntarily resigned in a letter dated May 17, 2025, and that the resignation was communicated to the Independent National Electoral Commission. Bala repeatedly denied authoring the letter, describing the signature on it as a forged and poor imitation of his authentic signature. In April 2026, he publicly disowned the document, insisting that neither the letter nor the signature emanated from him.

Beyond the resignation letter, the judgment also declared the Mark led caretaker committee illegal and invalidated all decisions taken by the committee. This included the nomination of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as the ADC presidential candidate for the 2027 election. The court also held that the party failed to show compliance with democratic election processes under Section 82(3) of the Electoral Act 2022, and declared the July 29, 2025 meeting null and void.

The ruling has drawn mixed reactions, with supporters of Bala describing it as a victory for due process and internal democracy, while supporters of the Mark led faction have faulted the judgment and signalled their intention to appeal. The Independent National Electoral Commission has also been restrained from recognising the Mark led leadership. As the legal battle continues, the future direction of the ADC ahead of the 2027 general election remains uncertain.