The 2023 presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Dumebi Kachikwu, has said former Senate President David Mark and his allies seized control of the party by pushing out existing executives and replacing them with loyalists through illegally constituted committees.
Kachikwu made the allegation on Arise TV on Thursday, a day after a Federal High Court in Abuja restrained the Independent National Electoral Commission from recognizing congresses organized by the Mark-led faction and barred the former Senate president and other prominent figures in the party from interfering with the functions and tenure of elected state executives.
Reacting, Mark assured party members through a statement by the party’s publicity secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, that the ADC would be on the ballot for all elections in 2027, despite the ruling. He said the party’s legal team had applied to appeal the judgment and had sought a stay of execution.
“You do not have anything to be afraid of regarding all the litigations before the party.
“I want to assure you that we shall triumph in all the cases, and we shall be on the ballot for every election.
“We are more than prepared and ready for these cases, and we shall do everything within the ambits of the law to surmount every situation,” he said.
Speaking on Thursday, Kachikwu said the party’s constitution vested the conduct of congresses and conventions in state chairmen, making the Mark faction’s committees an illegal override of that structure.
“In our constitution, the congresses are conducted and midwifed by the state chairman. Same thing with the convention,” he said.
He said the faction established ad hoc committees to supplant state executives and install preferred officials, prompting a wave of complaints from party members across the country.
“So those congresses, what David Mark did, they set up ad hoc committees and had these committees take over the functions of the state’s escrows to bring in people they wanted.
“So I’ve had people calling me from all the states, they pushed us out, they pushed us out, they took over our party structure or whatever,” he said.
Kachikwu said state chairmen who initially backed the Mark faction later reversed course after being sidelined and told they were not the class of people the faction wanted around it.
“Some of these state chairmen were working with David Mark because they believed that these people would take the party forward, before they realised that these guys said, you guys are too poor for us, you are commoners, we cannot work with you, we need people who look more like us,” he said.
He said the chairmen subsequently returned to him, conceding that his earlier warnings had been correct.
