Representative Leke Abejide, the member representing Yagba East/Yagba West/Mopamuro Federal Constituency of Kogi State in the House of Representatives and the self-described National Leader of the African Democratic Congress, has dumped the party he claims to have nurtured from obscurity to national recognition, citing internal crises, legal disputes, leadership uncertainty, and what he described as “a sustained attempt to frustrate his political ambition” a departure that has drawn widespread condemnation from Nigerians who accuse the lawmaker of being deployed by the Federal Government to destabilise the ADC from within and of abandoning the wreckage he helped create once the mission was accomplished.
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Abejide, who announced his exit while addressing journalists in Abuja on Friday, kept silent about his next political destination but dropped heavy hints of alignment with the ruling APC, stating he had “consulted and dialogued with people who share my vision and mission that are in tandem with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”
The departure comes barely 24 hours after the Supreme Court set aside the status quo ante bellum order in the ADC leadership crisis and affirmed the Mark-led leadership, and one day after the Federal High Court judgment by Justice Joyce Abdulmalik voided the congress committee appointed by the Mark faction, a judgment that Abejide himself cited as evidence of the “party hijackers'” wrongdoing, even as Nigerians pointed out that his own litigation was instrumental in keeping the party entangled in courts for months.
The lawmaker traced the crisis to a legal action he initiated in August 2025 against key ADC coalition figures.
“Around August 2025, I took the leaders of ADC coalition, in persons of Senator David Mark, Rauf Aregbesola, Chief Ralph Nwosu and ADC as a party, to court,” Abejide stated.
He said his lawyers sought accelerated hearing during the court’s long vacation “so as to get justice within a reasonable timeframe, as the electoral activities leading to primary elections were approaching.”
However, he alleged that the defendants employed delay tactics: “The defendants, who are David Mark and others, kept sending different people to join my case as a way to delay the matter from being adjudicated upon by the judge up to the time INEC rolled out the timetable for political activities, for primary elections and the 2027 general elections.”
He claimed the delays forced his lawyers to advise him to seek an alternative platform: “Since ADC is leaderless, with the implication of not having a validly elected National Chairman and National Secretary to sign my nomination form, which is mandatory by law before one can become a valid candidate, I should seek an alternative platform to pursue my political ambition.”
Abejide accused the ADC coalition leadership of deliberately targeting him and others who had built the party from the grassroots.
“It was then the mission of the ADC coalition became clear to me, that their intention was not to grow the party, but to ensure people like me, who have been contesting on the platform of ADC since 2019 without defecting to any other political party and have been winning when ADC was relatively unknown, do not achieve my political ambition,” Abejide stated.
“But they have failed; I have since moved on,” he declared.
He described the party as having been “unlawfully hijacked by politicians who were chased out of parties they could not manage, yet want to rule a macro ecosystem like Nigeria,” a thinly veiled reference to the coalition of opposition figures including Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rabiu Kwankwaso, and Rotimi Amaechi who joined the ADC as a vehicle for opposition realignment.
Abejide detailed what he described as his personal investment in building the party.
“I joined ADC and nurtured it to national recognition as a political party with representation in both National and State Assemblies. The party structure was funded by me as then National Leader of the party,” he stated.
He said he had “willingly relinquished” the national leadership to “the current National Chairman, Hon. Nafiu Bala,” wishing him “good luck as he continues to fight for his rights in court.”
“Our mission and vision were to produce a party we can be proud of; unfortunately, man proposes, God disposes,” Abejide stated.
The Mark-led ADC had purportedly expelled Abejide at the April 14 convention, alongside Nafiu Bala Gombe. Abejide dismissed the expulsion as invalid.
“Recently, on April 14, 2026, I was purportedly proclaimed by some individuals as being expelled. I wish to state that I have willingly and voluntarily exited and have since extinguished my membership of ADC by constitutional means permitted under the party’s constitution,” Abejide stated.
The distinction between being expelled and voluntarily leaving is significant for the narrative Abejide is constructing: he is not a man who was thrown out but a man who chose to walk away on his own terms.
Abejide addressed a viral video involving the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, that had raised questions about the government’s role in the ADC crisis.
“Let me put on record that I was not in ADC to destabilise the party I laboured to build, contrary to the viral video where Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila advised me to stay in ADC, contest my re-election and fight for my rights,” Abejide stated.
He characterised Gbajabiamila’s statement as having been “made in a jovial manner and taken out of context,” adding that the Chief of Staff “was even urging me not to leave the party and wished me good luck in court.”
“For anyone to suggest it was a judicial intervention or an attempt to undermine democracy is absurd. Clearly, there cannot be a bigger democrat than Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila,” Abejide added.
The explanation, rather than putting the matter to rest, raised further questions. A viral video showing the President’s Chief of Staff advising a lawmaker to remain in an opposition party and “fight for his rights” from within is precisely the kind of evidence that supports the allegation of government interference in the ADC’s internal affairs. Abejide’s insistence that it was a joke only deepened the suspicion.
Abejide invoked scripture to frame his departure, quoting Isaiah 9:10: “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones. The sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.”
“I have decided to change the bricks that are fallen down in ADC to hewn stones in a better political party with a good structure that will benefit my people, and equally to change my sycamore tree in ADC to a strong, enduring cedar of political certainty,” he stated.
The biblical reference was noted by commentators who observed that the verse in its original context describes defiance against divine judgment rather than spiritual wisdom, a detail that may not have been Abejide’s intended message.
While declining to formally name his next party, Abejide left little doubt about his direction.
“I have strenuously discussed, consulted and dialogued with my political leaders, constituency supporters and people who share my vision and mission that are in tandem with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and I am ready to continue my support for this progressive bloc,” Abejide stated.
The “Renewed Hope Agenda” is the signature policy programme of the Tinubu administration and the APC. Abejide’s alignment with it while departing the opposition signals a defection to the ruling party, joining Deputy Spokesman of the House of Representatives Philip Agbese, who defected from the APC to the Labour Party in late March, in a growing list of lawmakers changing platforms ahead of 2027, though in opposite directions.
The public reaction to Abejide’s departure has been overwhelmingly negative, with Nigerians accusing the lawmaker of having been used by the Federal Government to destabilise the ADC from within and of selfishly abandoning the party once the damage was done.
“This is the man who filed suits that kept ADC in court for months. This is the man whose litigation delayed the party’s ability to conduct primaries. This is the man who was allegedly in a video with the President’s Chief of Staff. And now he leaves? After the damage is done? What more evidence do you need that he was a Trojan horse?” one widely shared reaction stated.
“He funded the party, he claims. He built the structures, he claims. Then he filed lawsuits against its new leadership. Then he ran to the government’s Chief of Staff. Then the party got tangled in courts. Then INEC derecognised the party. And now, with the party barely surviving, he walks away. This was the plan all along,” another commentator stated.
“Selfish does not even begin to describe it. He calls them hijackers, but what do you call a man who sets fire to a house and then complains about the smoke? He destabilised ADC from inside and now he says the party is unstable. Of course it is. He helped make it so,” a third commentator observed.
“He says his counsel advised him that ADC is leaderless and cannot sign his nomination form. But who helped create the leadership crisis? Who filed the suits that kept the question of leadership unresolved? He created the problem and is now using the problem as his excuse to leave. Classic sabotage,” another Nigerian stated.
The accusation of government complicity was sharpened by Abejide’s own words. His alignment with the “Renewed Hope Agenda,” his defence of Gbajabiamila, his praise of Tinubu, and his silence about which party he is joining all point to a destination that Nigerians believe was his intended destination all along.
“He was never in the opposition. He was in the opposition’s party, which is a very different thing. His job was to ensure ADC could not function. He has done his job. Now he collects his reward,” one commentator summarised.
The Mark-led ADC had already expelled Abejide at the April 14 convention, though Abejide characterises his departure as voluntary. The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, had previously described the convention’s decisions as legitimate exercises of the party’s constitutional authority.
Founding Chairman Ralph Nwosu, whom Abejide named as one of the defendants in his suit, had declared that “the time is over for Tinubu politically” and that “what we have achieved by the coalition is phenomenal.” Abejide’s departure, and his alignment with Tinubu, places him on the opposite side of the political divide from the party he claims to have built.
Abejide’s exit removes one of the original ADC officeholders from the party and reduces its presence in the House of Representatives by one seat. However, the practical impact on the opposition coalition may be limited, as the ADC’s current political weight derives not from its pre-coalition membership but from the heavyweight politicians who joined it as a vehicle for 2027.
More significantly, Abejide’s departure and his alignment with the APC provide the ruling party with a propaganda victory: a founding figure of the ADC publicly declaring the party was “hijacked” by incompetent politicians and choosing to align with the Tinubu administration instead.
For Nigerians who watched the ADC crisis unfold over months, Abejide’s exit confirms what many suspected: that at least some of the internal turmoil that brought the party to the brink of extinction was not organic but was facilitated by actors working in coordination with the ruling party to ensure the opposition could not mount a credible challenge in 2027.
As one Nigerian stated: “He built the party. He sued the party. He broke the party. And now he leaves the party. And he wants us to feel sorry for him. The only people who should feel sorry are the Nigerians who were counting on ADC as their alternative. He sold them out.”
Abejide has moved on. The question is whether the ADC, having survived the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the Federal High Court, INEC’s derecognition, and now the departure of the man who claims to have funded its structures, can move on too.
As Abejide himself quoted from Isaiah: “The bricks are fallen down.”
Whether the ADC can rebuild with hewn stones, or whether the fallen bricks are all that remain, the coming weeks will tell.
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