Peter Lifu Rejects Disputed Resignation Letter in ADC Leadership Ruling

Justice Peter Lifu’s ruling in the African Democratic Congress leadership dispute turned on whether party officials had followed the proper process to replace an elected leadership team, according to the account of his judgment published by Saturday Vanguard. The Federal High Court judge invalidated the emergence of Senator David Mark and other executives who took control of the party in July 2025. In the judgment dated November 5, 2026, Lifu examined the defendants’ claim that Nafiu Bala Gombe had resigned as deputy national chairman before the transition. The camp relied on a letter identified in court as Exhibit ADC 1. Lifu did not treat its certification as proof that Gombe had personally signed it. Instead, he compared the disputed signature with Gombe’s signatures on other documents executed before a Commissioner for Oaths. The judge said he found differences in their structure, style and formation, concluding that they did not appear to be the same signature. He described the purported resignation letter as fictitious or fabricated and rejected it as reliable evidence that Gombe had voluntarily left his post. The report notes that this was a finding in a civil dispute, not a criminal conviction for forgery. The judgment also considered the reach of the ADC constitution’s Article 19(14). The defendants argued that it allowed the party’s National Executive Committee to dissolve the existing National Working Committee and make arrangements for new officers. Lifu acknowledged that political parties have autonomy over internal affairs, but the case also raised whether that authority could override the democratic procedures set out in law and the party constitution. The article says the judge identified a lack of satisfactory evidence that the new executives had emerged through a democratic election. His reasoning therefore challenged both the resignation letter used to support the leadership change and the claim that the NEC could install a replacement leadership without demonstrating that the required process had been followed.