APC’s dangerous gambit

The advent of the African Democratic Congress(ADC) in 2025 as a coalition party of politicians opposed to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and its absolute leader, President Bola Tinubu was received with relative enthusiasm in political circles. ADC had promised a credible opposition and an alternative to the APC. That, of course, was a promise, the easiest thing politicians offer at any point.

That mere declaration by ADC that it had come to checkmate the APC was enough to arouse excitement in the society. Why? Because ten years under the leadership of the APC has become a yoke of unbearable weight to many, a nightmare and not a source of hope.

ADC did not intend to draw its membership from Mars or Jupiter. Nobody expected that of it. The members of the new coalition were Nigerian politicians, a number of them even from the APC. There was nothing about ADC therefore, that promised Nirvana. The coalition’s motivating objective being the displacement of the APC, or at least giving it a run for its money was simply the source of hope for Nigerians. That is what democracy actually ordains. Ideas and policies should contend. The citizens ought to have alternatives to choose from.

Nothing about how ADC emerged was unprecedented or out of sync with the trend in Nigeria’s politics. As a matter of fact, the political trajectory that culminated in the emergence of ADC as a coalition platform was, more or less, a replica of how the APC came into being in 2013. The now ruling party emerged as a merger of political tendencies opposed to the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party.

The only known objective of the APC at inception was to dislodge the PDP. It achieved the goal rather fast. Not surprisingly, the party sank into cluelessly subsequently, to use the phrase it amply deployed to dismiss President Goodluck Jonathan, who it abused relentlessly and hounded to submission.

Against the backdrop of its history and emergence, APC would have been expected to be a paragon of tolerance to opposition and criticism. The opposite is the case. Rather than reconciling itself to criticisms and mending its many wayward ways, the ruling party appears to hold that the people do not even have any say in how their affairs are mismanaged.

The extent the Tinubu-led APC is going to undermine and obliterate opposition political parties is alarming, to say the least. Criticism and alternative political views appear to have become anathema before the Tinubu government. Meanwhile the president uses every opportunity to declare his bona fides as a democrat.

If APC has not been seized by hysteria and mortal fear of electoral contests, it would have known that the ADC is still struggling to become. The ruling party would have focused on remedying its ways before Nigerians instead of losing sleep and resorting to all manner of under-hand strategies to run opposition parties out of the system. The concept of an electoral democracy that will feature only APC and possibly few kwashiorkor-infested parties of its choice in the upcoming 2027 election, is only possible in APC land.

Although the ADC has been managing to maintain an image of internal cohesion and collective determination to contend with the APC, it does not take much effort to see that the party is still far from being a potent political party. Critical issues which should define the party, its essence and its enduring bearing are yet to be settled. The clash of ambition among the major personalities in the party, as well as a definite stand on such defining issues as zoning are still hanging.

The ADC therefore, has its own problems to sort out. But while it is preoccupied with that, it offers Nigerians the prospect of an alternative to the APC. The multi-dimensional efforts being made by the Tinubu-led APC to undermine and kill the ADC is, it must be acknowledged, an assault on democracy. It is a dangerous gambit that may yet undo all.

Barely a week passes by these days without reports coming from various parts of the country of violent disruption of ADC meetings by thugs and gunmen. There is silence from both the government and security agencies about these anti-democratic forces at work. The ultimate aim is not in doubt; ensure that ADC does not stand firmly anywhere. What if the PDP assumed that reprehensible posture when the APC came into being?

Last week in Eleme Local Government Area of River State, the inauguration of a Young Women’s Wing of the ADC was violently disrupted by thugs. They scattered the canopies, chairs and equipment at the meeting venues and dispersed the party faithful. The national women leader of the party later reported that they were warned by some local government officials not to mention the name of the ADC if they must hold any political meeting in the area.

Not too long ago in the same Rivers State, when a former governor of the state and prominent ADC leader, Rotimi Amaechi led his supporters back to his home town to get registered as the law demands, the team was waylaid and violently attacked. In Cross River state, an otherwise peaceful state, an anti-ADC violence has been recorded.

In Edo State, there had been multiple attacks and assault on ADC meetings. In fact, the APC leadership in the state openly declared that ADC should not even campaign in the state. Yet this is a party that has many prominent Edo citizens, including no less than two former governors in its fold. So, what manner of democracy is unfolding under the APC?

While all these physical assault on the ADC is going on, surreptitious but steady efforts are still being made to foist confusion in the party through the courts. The ruling party does not appear to be relenting on its machinations to ruin all identified serious contending political parties and thereby foreclose genuine electoral contest in 2027. The scheming is proceeding on all fronts without let, obviously impervious to the likely danger inherent in the plot.

Having masterminded the passage of the Electoral Act 2026 which is indeed, not much more than a document designed to stifle opposition politicians and parties, the APC still appears to be as apprehensive of his electoral future as ever.

Nothing, not even the killing of citizens by terrorists in parts of the troubled country, not pervasive hunger across the land, not displacement by terrorists of numerous communities from their ancestral homes and not the choking economic condition which the citizens are contending with at the moment appear to bother the ruling party as much as the existence of opposition political parties. This is simply sad.

There is still time, though short, for the APC to seriously address the problems of Nigerians and possibly win back some favour. It should retrace its step from these shadowy moves to destroy the ADC either by getting one projected foolhardy court to give the party the PDP treatment or allow some unknown thugs to continue to disrupt ADC meetings. How APC expects to go to a general election with no serious competitor remains baffling.

A ruling party owes the society much more than controlling the common purse. It has the obligation to safeguard the values of the land. President Tinubu and the APC should simply face the reality of democracy. They should work hard to earn the people’s trust and not act as a bull in the China shop.