How Paul Ibe got it wrong on Gombe and ADC — by Okoi Obono-Obla

I have read with interest the intervention of Mr. Paul Ibe, media aide to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, on the judgment of Hon. Justice Peter Lifu in FHC/ABJ/CS/1819/2025 — Nafiu Bala Gombe v. ADC & Ors.

With respect, Mr. Ibe is clutching at straws. The ADC, having lost woefully at the trial court, is now desperately searching for a new case on appeal.

Mr. Ibe raises what he calls “the most troubling question”:
If Gombe was elected on 12 October 2022 for four years ending 11 October 2026, what continuing entitlement remained for recognition on 5 November 2026?
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A judgment cannot, merely by recognising an expired mandate, supply a fresh tenure that the party’s constitution does not provide.
That sounds clever. It is legally hollow.

1. You cannot raise on appeal what you did not raise at trial — except with leave

It is elementary law that an appellate court is a court of review. A party will not be allowed to raise on appeal a question that was not raised, tried and considered in the court below, without the leave of the appellate court.

A ground of appeal raising a fresh issue without leave is incompetent and liable to be struck out.

Mr. Ibe and the ADC had all the time in the world at trial. They chose their case. They fought it on one pillar: that Gombe had resigned on 17 May 2025 by Exhibit ADC 1, and therefore had no standing to challenge the July 2025 takeover.

Justice Lifu examined that letter, compared the signature with Gombe’s signatures on documents sworn before a Commissioner for Oaths, found material differences, and held the letter to be fictitious and fabricated.

Having lost on the case they chose to fight, they cannot now come on appeal and invent a new case based on expiry of tenure. That is not advocacy. That is an attempt to re-litigate.

2. Expiry was never the ADC’s case, and it is not jurisdiction, locus or competence

Mr. Ibe now seeks to dress up expiry as if it goes to jurisdiction, locus standi or competence of the action, so that it can be raised at any time without leave.

With respect, it does no such thing.

This was never a jurisdictional objection. The Federal High Court had jurisdiction. Gombe had locus. The action was competent. What the ADC is now raising is a new defence on the merits — that even if Gombe did not resign, his tenure later expired.

That is a classic fresh point. It requires leave. And leave is not granted as a matter of course. It is granted only where the point is a substantial point of law, can be decided without fresh evidence, and will not take the other side by surprise or cause injustice.

More importantly, the ADC cannot explain why, if expiry was so central, it was never pleaded in the alternative at trial: “Even if he did not resign, his tenure would soon expire.” A party cannot approbate and reprobate. You cannot gamble on resignation, lose, and then ask the Court of Appeal to give you a second trial on expiry.

3. Even if expiry is considered, it does not save Senator Mark

Let us assume, for argument’s sake, that the Court of Appeal grants leave and considers the expiry point. It still does not help the ADC.

Expiry on 11 October 2026 does not retroactively validate what happened on 29 July 2025.

When Senator David Mark emerged at the 99th NEC meeting on 29 July 2025, Gombe’s tenure had not expired. He still had about 14 months to run. If that emergence was illegal then — because NEC could not, under Article 19(14) of the ADC Constitution, dispense with the mandatory democratic election required by Section 223(1)(a) of the 1999 Constitution and Section 82(3) of the Electoral Act 2022 — then it remains illegal now.

A later expiry cannot breathe life into an illegal takeover. An illegality committed in July 2025 cannot be cured in October 2026.

4. Declaratory relief is different from consequential relief

Mr. Ibe confuses two different things Justice Lifu did:

First, the court made declaratory orders: that Mark’s emergence and the resolutions of the 99th NEC meeting of 29 July 2025 are null and void.

Second, the court made a consequential order: that INEC should recognise Gombe as the officer entitled to supervise the party’s affairs.

Even if the Court of Appeal were to disturb the consequential order on account of expiry, the declaratory nullification of Mark’s leadership would still stand. The ADC would be left with no valid leadership — not with a validated Mark leadership, and certainly not with a validated Atiku candidacy produced by that illegal leadership.

You cannot use Gombe’s expiry to resurrect Mark. The two are not connected.

5. This is not law. This is clutching at straws.

What Mr. Ibe is doing is what losing parties often do: shifting the goalposts.

At trial, the case was: “He resigned.”
On appeal, the case becomes: “His tenure expired.”
Tomorrow, it will become something else.

The Court of Appeal will not allow the ADC to use appeal as a second trial. If the ADC wants to challenge Justice Lifu, let it challenge what he actually decided:

Was the resignation letter genuine?
Did NEC have power to appoint national officers without a democratic election?
Was there satisfactory evidence that Mark and Aregbesola emerged through a democratic election?

On those issues, the ADC lost. Expiry is a distraction — a straw to clutch at.

Mr. Ibe says these questions “belong before the appellate court.” I agree — but only if the ADC properly seeks leave to raise them, and only if the Court of Appeal is persuaded that they are not a new case smuggled in through the back door.

Until then, the judgment of Justice Lifu stands, and INEC is bound by it.