The Court of Appeal in Abuja has dismissed an appeal filed by former Senate President and current National Chairman of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Senator David Mark, over the ongoing leadership dispute in the party.
Mark had appealed a September 4, 2025, ruling by Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja in which the court refused to grant some injunctive reliefs contained in an ex parte application filed by a chieftain of the party, Nafiu Bala Gombe.
Gombe, a former Deputy National Chairman of ADC, who is laying claim to the leadership of the party, had filed an ex parte application along with his substantive suit, challenging, among others, the election of Mark and Rauf Aregbesola as National Chairman and National Secretary of the party.
He had, in the application, sought interlocutory injunctions to, among others, restrain the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from recognising Mark and Aregbesola as leaders of the ADC.
Gombe’s lawyer moved the application on September 4, last year.
In his ruling, Justice Nwite held that the court would not grant the ex parte application, but directed the applicant to serve it on the respondents for them to show why the reliefs sought in the application should not be granted.
The respondents, who are defendants in the substantive suit, are: the ADC, Mark, Aregbesola, INEC, and Chief Ralph Nwosu (the party’s immediate past National Chairman).
Mark appealed the September 4, 2025, ruling, claiming that the trial judge refused the ex parte application and no longer had the jurisdiction to conduct another hearing on it.
He claimed that as against the impression created in the ruling, the judge merely directed the adverse parties be put on notice over the ex parte application, the enrolled order revealed that the application was refused.
In its judgment delivered yesterday, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal, led by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam, upheld the objection raised by Gombe, through his team of lawyers led by Luka Musa Haruna (SAN), that the appeal was incompetent and that it was based on issues not reflected in the ruling of the trial court.
In the lead judgment, Justice Onyemenam also found that the issue of jurisdiction raised in Mark’s appeal was also an issue in a preliminary objection he filed before the trial court which was yet to be determined.
She held that the Court of Appeal could not review an issue that had not been determined by the trial court, adding that Mark’s claim, which Justice Nwite refused the ex parte application, was not contained in the ruling read in open court by the judge.
Justice Onyemenam further held that Mark was wrong to have relied on an enrolled order drawn by the court’s registrar to file an appeal rather than the ruling written and read by the judge.
She held that the correct record of any ruling or judgment of a court is the one read by the judge, not the summary, which the enrolled order represents.
In deciding the case on the merits, Justice Onyemenam further held that the appeal was incompetent because the notice of appeal was invalid, having been filed without first obtaining the leave of the court, the appeal being an interlocutory one.
The judge held that the directive contained in the ruling being appealed against was an interlocutory exercise of the trial judge’s discretionary power to regulate proceedings in his court, which could only be appealed against after the leave of either the trial court or the Court of Appeal had been obtained.
She averred that a careful examination of the ruling showed that the trial court did not determine the ex parte application, but merely exercised its discretion to direct that the adverse party be put on notice to show cause why the relief sought should not be granted.
She added that the order directing that the parties be put on notice for them to show cause could not, by any stretch of imagination, be construed as a final determination of the ex parte application.
Justice Onyemenam proceeded to dismiss the appeal for being unmeritorious and awarded a cost of N2 million against Mark.
She also ordered an accelerated hearing in the substantive suit still pending before the Federal High Court and also issued an order for the parties to maintain the status quo to preserve the subject of the dispute.
Gombe is, in the suit, among others, praying the court to void the emergence of the Mark-led leadership of the party.
Other members of the panel – Justices Mohammed Mustapha and Okon Abang – agreed with the lead judgment.
