Abuja, Nigeria — The national leadership of Accord has rejected as “laughable” the purported suspension of its national chairman, Barrister Maxwell Mgbudem, by the party’s former presidential candidate, Prof. Chris Imumolen, insisting that Imumolen is no longer a member of the party and lacks any authority to act in its name.
In a statement signed by National Publicity Secretary, Joseph Omorogbe, Accord described the Keffi, Nasarawa State “stakeholders’ meeting” where the suspension was announced as a mere jamboree “staged with non-members of Accord” by a “political jobber” seeking relevance ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The Keffi event, held earlier in the week, saw a faction claiming to represent Accord’s 36 state chapters announce Mgbudem’s suspension and recognise Imumolen as national chairman, citing an alleged Federal High Court order. That move triggered immediate pushback from the party’s National Working Committee, which maintains that there is no leadership vacuum and no parallel authority within Accord.
Accord’s statement stressed that Imumolen was expelled by the National Executive Committee on 20 November 2024 for allegedly attempting to hijack the party in violation of its constitution — a decision he neither challenged internally nor overturned in court. The party noted that a suit he filed at the FCT High Court in Apo, seeking to upturn the leadership structure, was struck out on 17 July 2025 by Justice Fatima A. Aliyu for want of jurisdiction.
Quoting from the ruling, Accord recalled that the judge held the case to be a “non-justiciable intra-party leadership dispute” and that issues involving federal agencies belonged before the Federal High Court, not the FCT High Court. All pending applications and interim orders were ordered to “abide by this decision.”
On that basis, the party argued that Imumolen “neither has the legal standing nor the moral authority” to call meetings or issue pronouncements on behalf of Accord. It reiterated that Mgbudem remains the duly recognised national chairman, pointing to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s website, which still lists him as the party’s national leader.
Accord framed the Keffi gathering as a calculated attempt to manufacture the perception of a leadership crisis as political positioning intensifies ahead of 2027. “All members of the party are in one accord and will not be distracted by the activities of its expelled members and their sponsors,” Omorogbe said, adding that the party has been “reorganised and repositioned as a formidable progressive mass movement” under Mgbudem.
The party urged Nigerians to disregard Imumolen’s claims, describing the Keffi meeting as a “jamboree” with “political hirelings” that has “no place in the Accord constitution.”
