2027: Legal Disputes Put Opposition Parties Under Pressure

With just over six months to go to the 2027 general elections Nigeria’s main opposition parties are falling further into a period of leadership wars and courtroom battles even as the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) consolidates its structures and prepares to face a divided and depleted field.

From the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), once the country’s dominant opposition platform, to the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the Labour Party (LP) and the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), the story is the same.

Parallel leaderships, rival conventions, duplicated candidates and an endless procession of lawsuits before the courts hold sway. The result is a creeping sense of uncertainty for thousands of candidates already cleared to contest next year’s polls, many unsure whether the platforms on which they hope to run will survive the litigation that has consumed their parties.

The crisis has led to two parallel primaries and, therefore, two presidential candidates in the PDP. The National Working Committee led by Abdulraman Mohammed, and supported by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has picked former Cross River senator Sandy Onor as the party’s presidential flag bearer for 2027.

On the other side, the Tanimu Turaki led Interim National Working Committee says it has nominated former President Goodluck Jonathan as the authentic PDP candidate. Last Wednesday, the two camps separately presented certificates of return to their gubernatorial and National Assembly candidates in separate ceremonies, highlighting the extent to which the division has become entrenched.

For now, the Mohammed led faction has the upper hand, being the leadership recognised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). However, the Turaki camp, through its Board of Trustees, has gone to court seeking an order compelling INEC to recognise it instead, one of at least two other suits on the PDP crisis currently before different courts.

Wike told a recent meeting of the National Executive Committee at the party’s secretariat in Wadata Plaza, Abuja, that the battle for the soul of the PDP had already been won and lost and insisted that the worst was over.

He said the access code that INEC issues to political parties for the 2027 process was expected by 26 June and his camp had no cause for fear.

But the spokesman for the Turaki led faction, Ini Ememobong, played down the importance of the access code, saying what really counts is whose candidates are on the ballot. He likened the contest to a marathon, not a sprint, recalling that his faction put up a candidate in Ekiti without the benefit of INEC’s portal access.

The ADC, which has presented itself as a coalition platform for the 2027 contest, is no better. The party is currently divided three ways; there is a faction led by former Senate President David Mark, considered the mainstream bloc and currently recognised by INEC; a faction led by Kingsley Ogga; and another led by former deputy national chairman, Nafiu Bala.

Among the prominent allies of the Mark camp is former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

The national publicity secretary of the ADC, Bolaji Abdullahi, confirmed that the party is contending with three separate cases in court, including a suit by Bala challenging Mark’s leadership, a suit on the party’s deregistration and another filed by aggrieved state chairmen.

Abdullahi, however, dismissed the disruption, saying the party had survived legal attacks since its inception and would not be derailed.

For his part, Ogga said his camp’s case was about holding the party to its own constitution, not serving any personal interest.

It is a view echoed by Ememobong of the PDP who alleged that the wave of litigation rocking opposition parties has been deliberately orchestrated by the APC led federal government to keep its rivals in disarray.
He cited previous statements by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu expressing satisfaction with a divided opposition as evidence of a state-orchestrated plan.

Abdullahi echoed the charge, describing the scale of legal harassment facing opposition parties as unprecedented in the history of Nigeria’s politics and warning it does not augur well for the country’s democracy.

The LP provides perhaps the most stark example of opposition disarray. Although there have been a series of court judgments that, for now, favour the faction led by Nenadi Usman, the rival camp loyal to former national chairman, Julius Abure maintains that the battle is far from over and is awaiting a final verdict from the Supreme Court.

The standoff has created parallel structures, separate congresses and conventions, and breathtakingly, two presidential candidates for one party.

The Usman faction has settled for Dr Chibuzo Okereke, a governance expert and public policy scholar at Miva Open University, Abuja, presenting him through a consensus process as a reform minded candidate with a background in institutional development and accountability.

The Abure-led faction, on its own part, has nominated its immediate past National Youth Leader, Prince Kennedy Ahanotu, as a fresh and youthful face who can mobilise young Nigerians and has insisted that his emergence was as a result of valid congresses conducted under its leadership.

Dr Ayo Olorunfemi, the Deputy National Chairman of the Abure faction, said that only the Supreme Court could finally determine the leadership question, and insisted that even an adverse ruling could not automatically confer victory on the candidates of the Usman camp.

But Elder Yusuf Solomon Danbaki, a former Kaduna State LP chairman, who is now a Kaduna Central senatorial candidate under the Usman faction, said the battle was already over, describing Abure’s parallel primaries as a mere distraction.

As both sides claim legitimacy and field rival presidential candidates, the LP heads towards 2027 weakened and divided against a resurgent APC.

The opposition’s troubles were compounded by the unfolding crisis around the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), a party that only months ago seemed to be emerging as a fresh rallying point for disaffected opposition figures.

The trouble started with a December 2025 judgment where the Federal High Court ordered INEC to register the NDC after the party challenged the commission’s earlier refusal to recognise it.

But the same court overturned that judgment in a fresh ruling on 26 June, 2026, following an application by the unregistered Peace Movement Party (PMP), which claims to have applied for registration using the same “Victory” symbol as far back as 2015.

The NDC insisted that the latest ruling did not order its deregistration and said it remains a lawfully registered party pending its appeal.

The ruling has sent shockwaves through its members, arriving at a crucial time as INEC commences uploading candidates for the 2027 elections.

Legal analysts say the verdict has thrown up real uncertainty about the party’s standing, and could even raise questions about the validity of its nominations if the litigation drags on, though the NDC dismisses such concerns, insisting its primaries followed the Electoral Act and INEC’s guidelines to the letter.

Beyond the courtroom, unease is spreading among the party’s rank and file. Sunday Sun learnt that some aspirants who paid hefty sums for nomination forms are worried that the legal battle could jeopardise their ambitions despite their financial and political commitment, just as aggrieved unsuccessful aspirants fuelled the murmurs of discontent in the party.

NDC leadership has sought to calm frayed nerves, saying the legal challenge is politically motivated and the court of appeal will overturn the ruling.

National chairman, Cleopas Zuwoghe, said the Federal High Court is not the final judicial authority in the land. The party still has confidence in the Nigerian judiciary, he said, adding that it would go the way of the appellate process and it is sure that justice will be done.

The pattern across the PDP, ADC, LP and NDC seems to be the same; internal power struggles spilling into the courts, parallel leaderships claiming legitimacy, and candidates left to navigate an uncertain path to the 2027 ballot.

Opposition figures say the fact these crises have collided together at the same time, and mere months before the polls, is no coincidence but rather an orchestrated attempt to undermine their parties while the APC tightens its hold on power.

But APC and handlers of President Tinubu have continued to deny such a design.