Atiku And The Unbolted Door That May Cost Him His Presidential Ambition, By Olabode Opeseitan

The rally ended on Wednesday. The judgment arrived on Thursday. Within a day, Atiku Abubakar went from addressing a crowd in Sokoto as a presidential candidate to learning that a Federal High Court in Abuja had declared the process that made him one a nullity. Justice Peter Lifu held that the David Mark-led caretaker committee was illegal, and he voided what flowed from it: the primary, the party offices, and the nominations from the presidency downward.

The immediate cause, I dare say, was an unbolted door.

Nigerian politics has no shortage of drama, but rarely does it deliver a lesson this clean.

The Yoruba have a proverb for the occasion. Eni to ba fe jeun gboin-gboin, a ti’lekun gboin-gboin. Whoever wants to eat his fill, unhurried, must first bolt the door firmly. Feasts are rarely lost to hunger. They are lost to whoever walks in while the door stands open.

The ADC coalition, unveiled in July 2025 with Ralph Nwosu stepping aside to make room for the new arrivals, was a feast of ambition. Its architects forgot the door.

Here is what happened. Nwosu resigned as national chairman, and David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola assumed control through a caretaker arrangement. Nafiu Bala Gombe, the party’s former National Deputy Chairman for the North-East, argued that the ADC constitution made him the rightful successor. He sued.

What followed was not an overnight ambush. The dispute passed through multiple judicial stages. There were injunctions, appeals, competing interpretations and repeated warnings that the party’s internal transition might not withstand legal scrutiny. The matter travelled through the courts before returning for substantive determination. On Thursday, the Federal High Court ruled against the caretakers on the party constitution and the Electoral Act.

Now the tension.

Atiku’s camp dismisses the judgment as an attempt to derail a national movement. It points to earlier judicial pronouncements that favoured its position on issues of jurisdiction, standing and internal remedies. Their opponents rejoice.

The uncertainty lies in the gap between the competing rulings. Different judges examining different aspects of the same dispute reached different conclusions. That is how a disagreement becomes a prolonged war. The ADC has promised an appeal, and the appeal will settle far more than the verdict itself.

Whatever the final result, the episode has created an image problem for Atiku.

The oldest rule of party capture is the one most often forgotten. If you borrow a vehicle, you must first obey its rules. You may rewrite them later, once you hold the numbers and the keys.

Applied here, the question was simple: who in this party could claim, under its own constitution, to be next in line? Someone could, and he did. A deal with one man, however senior, is not a deal with the institution. This is where the legal team enters the story.

One of the enduring lessons I took from working for one of Africa’s richest and savviest men is that everyone leading a transaction must read the contract with a fine-tooth comb. Not just the lawyer on the side. Everyone.

The damage hides in the fine print. Fire on the mountain is usually lit with a legal firecracker.

Atiku’s side was no lightweight. It counted generals of the military and of politics among its number. How, then, did this escape them? Was the point raised and then dismissed? Or was it never adequately appreciated? Neither answer reflects strong planning.

Atiku and his allies may find excuses, and they may blame their opponents, who are certainly not idle. But a wound is not less self-inflicted because someone else pressed on it.

An early accommodation of the dissenters may have cost far less than the present litigation. Today, even a settlement would come at a much higher price.

There is a further irony.

A man whose life’s ambition has long been the presidency has often depended on vehicles built by others rather than one permanently under his own control. Political alliances can be immensely useful. They can also become points of vulnerability when ownership, succession and institutional legitimacy are contested.

The rule of law has spoken, though this is only the first round.

The tardiness of political gladiators is another matter, and it injures the body politic. Nigerians pay for it in uncertainty.

Stress-test every move before you rush a crucial decision. Read the contract as your enemy would. Ask who was left out of the room, and bring him in before he finds a lawyer.

The next ambitious coalition will build its house with great energy, and the wise ones among them will remember the feast and the door.

Bolt it first.

Atiku Abubakar Hausa
African Democratic Congress HQ
Sen David Mark
INEC Nigeria
RAUF AREGBESOLA

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