Loud cry of victimhood and quiet facts of power

Yet Mark does not merely disagree with INEC’s interpretation; he leaps beyond disagreement into accusation. The commission, he declares, has chosen “the path of dishonour.” It is “irredeemably partisan.” It is acting at the behest of the ruling party. These are heavy claims, but they rest less on demonstrable proof and more on political inference. In this narrative, every institutional decision that does not favour his faction becomes evidence of a grand design.

This is where the speech shifts from argument to performance.

Because what is being constructed here is not just a legal case, it is a moral theatre. The ADC is cast as the “last bastion” of democracy. The government is painted as an emerging dictatorship. The stakes are inflated to existential proportions: if this moment is lost, democracy itself may collapse. It is compelling. It is emotive. It is also deeply strategic.

For in politics, victimhood can be as powerful as victory.

By framing the dispute as a national crisis rather than an internal party conflict, David Mark elevates his personal and factional legitimacy struggle into a symbolic battle for Nigeria’s soul. It is a clever move. It invites public sympathy, attracts international attention, and places pressure on institutions like INEC by turning legal caution into perceived political betrayal.

But this strategy carries its own risks.

When every disagreement becomes an “attack on democracy,” the phrase itself begins to lose meaning. When every institutional action is interpreted as conspiracy, the possibility of genuine neutrality is suffocated. And when internal party disputes are recast as national emergencies, the line between principle and opportunism becomes dangerously thin.

There is also a telling irony in David Mark’s position. He argues that INEC has no authority to determine party leadership, a correct assertion in principle, yet demands that INEC recognise his leadership as the only legitimate one. He criticises the commission for acting, and in the same breath criticises it for not acting in his favour. It is a delicate balancing act: INEC must be passive, but only in ways that produce the “right” outcome.

This is not a defence of institutional independence; it is a negotiation with it.

Meanwhile, the broader political undertone cannot be ignored. The reference to coalition-building, the implicit suggestion of growing opposition momentum, the shadow of figures like Rabiu Kwankwaso all point to a deeper struggle unfolding beneath the legal surface. This is not merely about who chairs the ADC; it is about who controls a potentially strategic platform ahead of 2027.

And in that context, every move becomes amplified.

INEC’s caution becomes sabotage. A court process becomes persecution. A rival claimant becomes a proxy for state power. The narrative writes itself, because it must. In high-stakes politics, perception is not just important; it is everything.

None of this is to suggest that Nigerian institutions are beyond reproach. Far from it. Scepticism toward power is healthy, and vigilance is necessary. But criticism must be anchored in evidence, not merely in suspicion amplified by political necessity. To accuse an electoral body of subverting democracy is to make a grave charge, one that demands more than rhetorical flourish.

What Mark’s speech ultimately reveals is not just a crisis within a party, but a deeper discomfort with uncertainty. The courts have not yet spoken. The outcome is not yet fixed. And in that liminal space, where power is neither fully held nor fully lost, anxiety finds its voice.

That voice, in this case, is loud, eloquent, and urgent.

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But volume is not validity.

The truth is more mundane, and perhaps more unsettling: this is what democracy often looks like in practice, not a clean contest between good and evil, but a messy, contested process where law, politics, and ambition collide. Institutions hesitate. Actors accuse. Narratives harden. And somewhere in the middle, the slow machinery of justice grinds on.

David Mark is right about one thing: democracy depends on freedom, freedom to choose, to participate, to contest. But that freedom also includes the right to challenge leadership in court, the right of institutions to exercise caution, and the uncomfortable reality that not every adverse decision is an act of tyranny.

Sometimes, it is simply the system working, imperfectly, noisily, and without regard for anyone’s preferred outcome.

•Ishola writes from United Kingdom.