Following the adoption of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) by opposition leaders as the platform on which to challenge the AllProgressives Congress (APC) at the 2027 polls, penultimate Thursday, talks have shifted to whether there will be a change of government in 2027 or not; and factors that will determine where the pendulumwill swing. In this report, ONYEDIKA AGBEDO highlights the issues currently at play alongside the views of stakeholders.

The unveiling of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) by a coalition of opposition leaders in the country as the platform on which to wrestle power from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)in the 2027 elections has, no doubt, activated the political consciousness of the voting public. Since that historic event on Thursday, July 3, this year, which came after months of experiments, consultations, and of course some level of political horse-trading among the opposition leaders, political discourse in the polity has centred on the development, both in the media and at group levels.

Top promoters of the ADC coalition include experienced politicians like former vice president Atiku Abubakar; presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 elections and former governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi; former President of the Senate, David Mark, who was named interim chairman of the party and Rauf Aregbesola, the interim national secretary of the party. Mark represented Benue South senatorial district from 1999 to 2019 and had before the restoration of democracy served as military governor of Niger State from 1984 to 1986; while Aregbesola served as governor of Osun State from 2010 to 2018 and Minister of Interior from 2019 to 2025. This is in addition to serving as Commissioner for Works for eight years (1999-2007) in Lagos State.

Others are Nasir El-Rufai, a former Director of the Bureau for Public Enterprises, former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and former governor of Kaduna State; Rotimi Amaechi, a former governor of Rivers State and former Minister of Transportation; and Abubakar Malami (SAN), who served as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation from 2015 to 2023. Speaking shortly after being unveiled as the interim national chairman, Mark said the coalition?s move was aimed at rescuing Nigeria from authoritarian drift.

He said the alliance was formed to prevent the country?s ?descent into a one-party state,? accusing the Tinubu administration of hijacking democratic institutions and leading Nigeria towards a ?creeping civilian dictatorship.?

Mark lamented that under Tinubu?s government, Nigerians were ?wallowing in abject poverty, hunger and insecurity, without any meaningful government effort to address the situation?.

He added: ?We have never seen this level of insecurity across the country. Bandits and kidnappers kill Nigerians at will daily, yet the government has failed to act decisively.?

On his part, Aregbesola, while addressing a crowd of supporters who welcomed him at the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos penultimate Friday, urged them to ask critical questions that border on the economy.

?Ask questions based on food inflation, the economy, rising cost of living and poverty, among others. Let your debates be issues-based, he said.

He explained that the ADC was not just another political platform but a credible alternative born out of the urgent need to rescue Nigeria from worsening socio-economic conditions.

To many political observers, these are familiar faces and familiar issues Nigerian face at almost every election cycle, especially since 2015.

For instance, the APC capitalised on the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East region, particularly Borno State, and the Jonathan administration?s handling of the issue to win the Presidency in 2015. It sold its presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, to Nigerians as the retired General with the magic wand to quell the insurgency.

But the Buhari administration?s efforts to bring the insurgency under control appeared not to have been enough, as insecurity took the form of banditry under his watch; spreading to the North West, North Central and even some southern states. Part of the result of the situation was food shortage, as farmers could not go to their farms to avoid being killed, kidnapped, raped or maimed by bandits. Thus, insecurity and hunger were major issues that shaped the 2019 and 2023 general elections.

Therefore, the questions on the lips of many political watchers are: Can the ADC ride on the back of the prevailing insecurity and hunger in the country ? the same mantra the APC used in 2015 ? to take over power in 2027? Will the electorate trust them given that many of them were part of the APC leadership that promised to address these same issues in 2015? Are they really after the interest of the common man or merely seeking to dislodge the Tinubu administration for keeping them away from the corridor of power? Will President Tinubu be able to convince Nigerians that he indeed means well for the country despite the hardship induced by the economic reforms of his administration, hence they should not listen to the coalition promoters?

In an interview, a social activist, Senator Shehu Sani, expressed reservations about the genuineness of the intentions of the coalition?s leaders.

His words: ?It is a fact that the economic reforms programme of this administration comes with its attendant consequences and prices to be paid by the Nigerians, and these prices are termed as sacrifices. But it is important that the Nigerian public and the Nigerian masses specifically separate their sacrifices with the political opportunism of the political elites who have now assembled themselves as a coalition.

?You will need to ask yourself: With the profile, the calibre and the faces of this messianic coalition, do these people actually represent your interest? Will these people lead you to freedom? Will these people lead you to prosperity? Will these people lead you to the future? Do you deep down in your conscience look at these faces who are today parading themselves as saviours and convince yourself that these are the people that can lead you to the Promised Land?

?Secondly, if you are looking for the people who destroyed Nigeria during the 16 years of PDP, they are in the coalition. If you are looking for people who destroyed Nigeria during the eight years of APC, they are in the coalition. If you are looking for those who participated in the 16 years of PDP and eight years of APC, they are in the coalition. These were governors; these were ministers; these were people who had the opportunity to transform Nigeria, to free Nigeria, to prosper Nigeria but they failed during their terms in office. Now, these are the people who have today, simply because they are out of office for two years, feel marginalised and why should a government be run without them and have presented themselves as messiahs. They presented themselves as freedom fighters; they are presenting themselves as liberators of Nigeria.?

A public affairs analyst, Mr. Jide Ojo, shared a similar sentiment. Ojo pointed out that politicians copy from the same textbook, warning Nigerians not expect any originality or strategic engagement from the ADC.

He said: ?If you look over the last six years in this Fourth Republic, if you can go into the archives, you will see that from 1999 to date, politicians have been campaigning on the same thematic issues. It has been tackling insecurity, tackling hunger and bridging the infrastructural gap.

?So, this ADC is not bringing anything to the table that you can say is original. But they are bound together by a common enemy, which is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. They just want to dislodge him and they are very desperate.?

Explaining why he feels the coalition?s leaders are desperate, Ojo said: ?Atiku is 78 years; by 2027 he is going to be 80 years. This is his last chance. By the time he is 80-year-old, he can?t contest elections again. Then Peter Obi has seen that this is about the biggest opportunity he will have to be president; he is about 64 or 65 years old. If he does not win in 2027, power will shift to the North in 2031 and power will most likely be in the North for eight years. By the time you add that to his age he will be in his 70s and people will be saying that he is too old. The same thing goes for Amaechi and that is why you see all of them committing to one term. But the biggest challenge they are going to face is in the party nominations when the time comes.?

He warned the APC not to underrate the ADC, stating that they parade experienced politicians who know how to win elections.

?And they have deep pockets because they have been living off government for a very long time. The possibility is that funding may not be a huge challenge to them. So, you have to be very wary of such experienced people. You don?t dismiss them by saying that they are internally displaced politicians because by the time they are able to mobilise from the grassroots and become a movement, and also woo serving political office holders into their fold, they will be a big threat to the APC. Thus far, the movement is unidirectional in terms of defections. Ninety per cent of defectors are moving to APC. But the thing that attracted them to APC, which is about getting tickets for 2027 elections, contracts and appointments, if they fail to get those things in APC, they already have an alternate route in the ADC.?

Ojo also submitted that the leaders of the coalition are driven by their interests, but observed that ?politics is simply about interest; nothing more, nothing less.?

He added: ?So, it?s not about the ordinary citizen; it?s about self preservation and getting a chair at the dining table. And the only way they can do it is to de-market the current government just the same way the APC de-marketed the Goodluck Jonathan administration in 2015.

?The bottom line is that they will bring their own sloganeering. It?s not as if they are bringing anything fresh to the table but they have to say those things to be able to woo the voters to look in their direction. You remember how Buhari came in 2015; he rode on the change mantra. By 2019, people were saying change the change. But they couldn?t change the change. In 2023, the fold of the opposition was fragmented and you could see that in what they scored in the last presidential election. If they had presented a united front, perhaps the outcome of that election could have been different. So, what they are trying to do now is to muster resources together and try to build a united front believing that with that, the mistakes of 2023 would be corrected. However, they will have only promissory notes to campaign on while Tinubu will be reeling out the achievements of his administration.?

On whether Nigerians would trust the ADC given that its promoters are people who had been in government circles for many years, Ojo noted that people have short memories.

?That is why I am always very wary to say this party destroyed Nigeria or that party is bad. It?s the characters within the party system that are culpable. Someone like David Mark has been in the corridor of power for over 40 years. He was military administrator of Niger State in the 80s; he was Minister of Communications; he won elections in this Fourth Republic and represented his senatorial district from 1999 to 2019. Within that period, he was President of the Senate for eight years. So, these people are not new. There is no ideological leaning by any of these characters.

?What I am very certain about is that it is good for our polity that APC will not have a walk in the park in 2027. Even if it?s going to win the Presidency in 2027, it won?t be an easy ride for it.?

Speaking in the same vein, the founder of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Chekwas Okorie, observed that insecurity and hunger would remain campaign issues in Nigeria for a long time.

?APC used it against Jonathan?s PDP administration. Today, hunger has worsened instead of abating. Insecurity has worsened. Therefore, any new party coming up will be preaching the same thing because the issues have not been addressed. So, until they are addressed, those two issues will continue to be campaign issues.

?Having said that, to be charitable to those promoting the ADC, they just bought over the party from its previous leaders. It was not a normal coalition like that of the APC where existing parties ? ANPP, CPC and CAN ? came together, wrote a Memorandum of Understanding, and applied to INEC for registration. And don?t forget that before you apply to INEC, you must have a manifesto and constitution, which you submit to the commission.

?Now, these people simply bought an existing party, whose manifesto and constitution may not be in tandem with what they would like to present to Nigerians at this time. So, they are still in the process of getting organised. As they said, they will do their mini convention, elect their officers, produce a manifesto and constitution and submit them to INEC. The manifesto will be a social contract between the party and the masses. That is when one can begin to look at whether ADC is different or not; whether it has any ideological direction or not,? he said.

Okorie noted that the political situation in the country threw up the coalition, stressing that ethnicity has deepened in Nigeria now more than ever before.

?Former president Buhari gave it a meaning in the manner of his appointments, which some people termed ?Fulanisation? of Nigeria. Then President Tinubu, a person that was credited as a champion of true federalism, proved to the public that even Buhari was a learner in the area of nepotism and ethnicity. People now call his government a ?Yorubanised? government. So, Nigeria is far more divided now than any other time I have known as a long-standing politician,? he noted.

According to him, the 2027 general election will not be driven by ideology or whether the people who were there before are the same people who are coming now.

?There is no country where you just have brand new politicians at any election cycle. It is still the old politicians that will come. And some people say they are coming for their selfish interest; it is all about interest. The late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe said many times when he was alive that in politics, there is no permanent friend or permanent enemy. What is permanent is interest. That interest could be personal interest or group interest. But in Nigeria, it?s more of personal interest.

?Now the people of the North West were the people who gave Tinubu the numbers that landed him in the Presidency. They gave him 5.8 million votes. Don?t forget that Tinubu had 8.9 million votes. So, if 5.8 million came from one geo-political zone, that zone is critical to Tinubu?s return. What did Tinubu get from his place, the South West? He got 2.8 million votes, less than half of what he got from North West. In the South East, he got 5.7 per cent of the votes cast. Now, in the whole of South, Peter Obi won in 11 out of the 17 states. So, he still has to reverse that. Of course, we all know what happened in Abuja, where Peter Obi won 58 per cent of the votes, leaving the balance for Tinubu and Atiku to share; and people started bringing in various interpretations about 25 per cent of the FCT. And let it be noted that in all the elections that Atiku Abubakar had contested, which he lost overall, he always won his geo-political zone, the North East. So, when you look at these demographics and in terms of the sentiment that is on now, which is deeply ethnic, and ethnic sentiment is stronger than religious sentiment (and that is the danger in what we are into), what magic will Tinubu do in the next two years that will make the people of North West and North East consider him for another opportunity to continue administering the country?? he asked.

The former presidential candidate predicted that anybody that would assess the 2027 elections on the basis of promises made by the parties would fail.

?What is driving it is not any of those considerations but ethnic sentiments. In that order, religious sentiment may come in later but the way the issue of Muslim/Muslim ticket has been handled in Nigeria twice has proved that religion is not even critical. It is ethnicity that is the major issue. That was why Peter Obi could win 88 per cent of the votes in the South East in 2023,? he noted.

With less than two years to the elections, there is no doubt that a political tug of war has ensued between those who want to preserve the status quo and those who are dissatisfied with it and seek a change. Nigerians are watching to see how it will end. (The Guardian)

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