Court Rules Nafiu Bala's Resignation Letter is Fake

The Federal High Court in Abuja has rejected a resignation letter that was said to be from Nafiu Bala. He is the former Deputy National Chairman of the African Democratic Congress (ADC). The court ruled that the letter was not genuine.

Justice Peter Lifu delivered the judgment on Thursday, November 5. He ruled that the letter, which the ADC faction led by former Senate President David Mark used to claim Bala resigned, was not authentic.

A Certified True Copy of the judgment was obtained by our correspondent on Wednesday. The judge said he looked at the signature on the resignation letter and compared it with signatures on Bala’s witness statements. He found differences that showed the letter was not real.

Justice Lifu ruled that the document could not be trusted as proof that Bala left his position in the party willingly. He noted that just because a document is certified does not mean that the signature on it is real. The court needed to review all evidence before deciding.

“The fact that a document is certified, however, does not, by that fact alone, settle a genuine dispute as to whether the person named in it actually signed it,” he said.

“Certification may establish the status of the copy as a true copy of the document in the custody of the certifying authority; it does not necessarily establish the authenticity of the disputed signature.”

The judge explained that courts can compare disputed signatures with known ones without needing expert evidence every time. He carefully compared the signature on the document, marked as Exhibit ADC-1, with those on Bala’s sworn statements. He found that they were clearly different.

Justice Lifu then rejected the document as reliable evidence of Bala’s resignation. “I am not satisfied that Exhibit ADC-1 represents the genuine act of the plaintiff. I therefore reject it as reliable proof that the plaintiff voluntarily resigned from his position as Deputy National Chairman of the 1st defendant (ADC),” he ruled.

This ruling is part of the ongoing legal battle over the ADC leadership. It led to the court’s decision that canceled the leadership of the David Mark faction. The court also nullified the party’s choice of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar as its presidential candidate for the 2027 general election.

Bala had gone to court in September 2025 to challenge the leadership arrangement that made Mark the national chairman and Rauf Aregbesola the national secretary. The Mark faction claimed that Bala resigned on May 17, 2025, and that this was communicated to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

But Bala has denied writing the letter, calling it a forgery. In April 2026, he publicly rejected the document. “I wish to state that this paper did not come from me, and that is not my signature on it. The signature you see there was forged,” he said.

The court’s decision against the resignation letter weakens a key argument from the Mark-led faction that Bala had stepped down before the party changed leadership. Justice Lifu also said that the emergence of Mark and Aregbesola during the party’s 99th National Executive Committee meeting on July 27, 2025, did not meet the democratic election requirements under Section 82(3) of the Electoral Act 2022.

He explained that the party's reliance on its National Executive Committee and INEC’s recognition could not replace the need to follow the law. This ruling has made the ADC’s leadership crisis even more complicated. The Mark-led faction has rejected the judgment and plans to appeal it.

This decision adds more uncertainty to the party’s preparations for the 2027 elections, especially after the nullification of Atiku’s nomination.