Nigeria, April 6 -- Last week's decision by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to withdraw recognition for the David Mark-led National Working Committee (NWC) of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), in compliance with a Court of Appeal judgment, has once again exposed the fragility of Nigeria's opposition politics.

Predictably, some voices have rushed to frame the development as part of a broader plot by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to weaken a potential challenger ahead of 2027. While such suspicions are not entirely unfounded in Nigeria's political history, they risk obscuring a more uncomfortable truth: the ADC's crisis is largely self-inflicted.

At the heart of the dispute are allegations of a brea...