The Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress and ADC Chieftain, Dumebi Kachikwu, has defended the legitimacy of his emergence amid the ongoing leadership crisis rocking the party. Kachikwu made the clarification during an interview from 2:42 on Channels Television on Monday, May 25, 2026.
Responding to questions regarding the controversy surrounding his candidacy and the ongoing litigation within the party, Kachikwu argued that many media organisations were misunderstanding the situation by focusing solely on the names currently displayed on the INEC portal.
Kachikwu replied, “A good question. I think the mistake lots of media journalists are making when they say when they check the INEC website and that what they see there is the David Mark-led group, I think what you should do is actually look deeper.”
According to him, a proper review of the INEC portal would reveal that the recognised state chairmen of the party are aligned with his faction. “You should go to the INEC website and check all the states and all the different state chapters and see who the chairmen are in those state chapters. Those are the chairmen who are with me, and those are the chairmen who conducted the convention,” he said.
Kachikwu further explained that his faction conducted congresses last week, which produced new state chairmen already uploaded by INEC as the valid officials of the party in their respective states.
“We held our congresses last week, and those people we emerged during our congresses for the new state chairmen, INEC has uploaded them as the valid state chairmen of the party because the court order that came about two, three weeks ago was very, very clear that the party is rightly vested in the state chairmen,” he stated.
He maintained that the court ruling empowered only the state chairmen to conduct congresses and the party convention, which his faction carried out. “The court order also made clear that only the state chairmen could conduct congresses and a convention, which is what we did yesterday,” Kachikwu added.
Speaking further on why the David Mark-led faction still appears on the INEC portal, Kachikwu attributed it to another pending legal matter involving the Nafiu Bala faction and the David Mark group. “INEC in having David Mark and Co. on their portal is just because of the other case that is going on concerning the Nafiu Bala faction and David Mark faction,” he explained.
He accused the electoral commission of previously removing names from the portal due to a court order before later restoring them after another judicial directive. “And because INEC had made the mistake to say because of the court order, they removed them. So when there was a court order that says you don’t have to do that, they then put them there,” he said.
Kachikwu, however, insisted that the court order recognising the authority of the state chairmen remains binding and warned that legal action would follow if INEC fails to upload the officials produced during the convention conducted by his faction.
“In the event that after the convention that we’ve conducted, because they heeded to our congresses and they uploaded those we emerged. So after this convention, if INEC does not then upload those who we emerged on their portal, then we’ll go to court and get the INEC chairman charged for contempt of court. It’s very simple,” he stated….Read_More…