Fact-check: No, the ADC has not been disbanded — here is the real update

A claim is spreading online that Atiku's party, the ADC, and other opposition parties have been 'disbanded' or 'scrapped'. That is not what has happened. Here is the accurate status, in plain terms, with the court record.

Over the past few days a claim has gone viral across WhatsApp, X and Facebook: that the African Democratic Congress (ADC) — the party of Atiku Abubakar — and several other opposition parties have been "disbanded," "scrapped" or "banned." Some versions say their candidates are off the 2027 ballot entirely.

That is not accurate. Here is exactly what has and has not happened, so you can judge for yourself.

The claim

"Atiku's party ADC has been disbanded / dissolved. The party no longer exists and its candidates are out of the race."

Verdict: False, as of 7 July 2026. No party has been dissolved, banned or struck off the register. What exists is a court order to deregister, and that order is currently suspended.

What actually happened

There are three separate steps, and the viral posts collapse them into one:

A court ordered deregistration. The Federal High Court in Abuja (Justice Peter Lifu) ruled that five parties failed to meet the constitutional thresholds for continued registration and directed INEC to deregister them. The five are the ADC, Action Peoples Party (APP), Action Alliance (AA), Accord Party (AP) and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP). Notably, INEC itself had opposed the suit and argued the parties met the requirements.
An appeal court suspended that order. On 16 June 2026, the Court of Appeal stayed the judgment — legally freezing it — and barred INEC from acting on it while the appeal is decided. The appellate court sharply criticised how the lower-court order was issued.
The appeal is being heard. On 7 July 2026, a three-member Court of Appeal panel heard the substantive appeals. As of this writing, no final judgment removing these parties has been delivered.

The net effect: the ADC and the other four parties remain legally registered and their candidates remain on the ballot while the case runs its course.

"Deregistration" is not "disbandment"

This is where a lot of the confusion comes from, so it is worth being precise:

Deregistration is INEC removing a party from its official register. It only happens if and when INEC actually carries it out — and here, INEC has been stopped from doing so by the appeal court.
Disbandment / dissolution — a party ceasing to exist — is not what any court has ordered. No one has dissolved the ADC.

A court ordering something, and that thing taking legal effect, are two different moments. Right now the order is frozen between those two moments.

Why this rumour spread

It is an easy story to get wrong. A real court ruling ("deregister the ADC") is dramatic and true-sounding, and by the time it reaches a group chat the caveats — stayed, on appeal, not enforced — have fallen off. The result is a headline that outruns the facts. That is exactly how election-season misinformation works: a kernel of something real, stripped of the qualifier that changes its meaning.

What this means for you as a voter

The ADC, APP, Action Alliance, Accord and ZLP are still valid parties today. Do not assume their candidates are out.
On PoliticsDirect, we have not removed a single candidate over this case. Instead, each affected candidate carries a visible notice — "Deregistration ordered — stayed on appeal" — with a link to the court report, so you see the real, unresolved status rather than a rumour.
Watch for the appeal judgment. If the Court of Appeal upholds the deregistration and INEC acts on it, that would be the moment the status genuinely changes — and we will update every affected card and publish it here.

The bottom line

The accurate one-line version to share instead of the rumour:

"A court ordered the ADC and four other parties deregistered, but an appeal court suspended that order. The parties are still registered and their candidates are still on the 2027 ballot while the appeal is decided."

Before you forward a claim that a party is "finished," check whether an order has actually been enforced, or merely issued and then paused. In this case, it is the latter.

PoliticsDirect is non-partisan. We flag what is genuinely uncertain, we do not remove candidates over unsettled cases, and we never decide for you who is in or out of a race.