Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the National Publicity Secretary of African Democratic Congress (ADC), in his usual brilliant, bold and daring manner, shared his thoughts on the state of the nation ahead of thE 2027 general elections in Ilorin. Excerpts of interview:

Some Nigerians are of the view that President Tinubu should be allowed to complete two terms as others from other geopolitical zones before him. What’s your view?

The Nigeria constitution that provides for second term does not make it automatic. It says that after four years you do what? You renew your mandate. That’s why it allows for election after four years. If the Nigerian constitution envisages automatic eight years, the constitution will just simply say you are elected for eight years. It doesn’t say that. It says you are elected for four years. So, after four years you go back to the people, then they will decide whether to re-elect you or not. And you don’t get to mark your own script. Nigerian people will mark your answer sheet and decide whether you have passed or you have failed. And what Nigerians are saying resoundingly, because when you say let him also, it’s not about anybody letting him or not letting him. It’s about whether you have improved the lives and livelihood of the people. And the verdict today is that the APC government has failed.

That is a verdict. Look at the Borno bomb blast. Do you know how many Nigerian soldiers are killed every single day? People’s children, people’s husbands slaughtered for offering to defend their own country. More people have died under President Tinubu that have died even in any country of the world where there is war. The numbers are there. I’m not making it up. When you leave here, go and check the Afro barometer report 2025, 94% of Nigerians said they are not happy with the direction that the country is going. So, what other verdict do you need? They can do propaganda, but they don’t get to mark their own answer sheet. Nigerians will. And Nigerians are saying that they have failed. The only way they can come back is to rig this election. That’s the only way. And they know, and that’s why they are doing all that they are doing. And that’s why they are making all kinds of funny laws. They don’t care whether they pull down the country in the process. The APC government is reducing Nigeria to its low ethical standards. Because in what other clime will you see a National Assembly make a law that says certificate forgery is no longer a basis to challenge election results? What are we telling children? And the question we are asking is where is ASUU? Where are the students unions? A national representative of the people made a law that says if someone forges a certificate, or claim to have gone to University of Ibadan for example, forged a certificate in Oluwole or wherever they forge certificate, as long as his party did not stop him and he managed to win the election, that Is okay. The constitution of Nigeria by the way is very clear on this, but they don’t care what the constitution says. So, if on the basis of that forged certificate you are elected, then nobody has the right to challenge your election. So, what are we telling children? Go ahead and forge certificates? We have become a nation of certificate forgers.

APC has destroyed the moral fabric of our society. They now say children can go ahead and forge certificates. They will tell you, oh the reason we did it is, ‘so that it should be pre-election litigation. It shouldn’t be post-election litigation. So, if an armed robber robs a house, as long as you didn’t catch him at the venue of stealing, so he can get away with it? So as long as he gets away with it and he was not caught at the crime scene, then you can no longer challenge him for armed robbery. That is the meaning of what they are saying.

What should be the role of the Nigerian electorate in all of these?

You see, it is not ordinary people that provide leadership in a time like this. There are nucleuses of power in every society in organized form. I asked earlier, where is ASUU? Where is the Nigerian Labour Congress? As a matter of fact, where is the media? Where are the civil society organizations? Civil society organizations now, they have been demobilized since 1999. They are just doing election monitoring, voter education. And what we fail to realize is that a bad civilian government is more difficult to remove than a bad military government. How do I mean? A bad military government is fundamentally illegitimate. So, anything you do to remove it is legitimate. Now, a bad civilian government, no matter how bad, is fundamentally legitimate because it can claim that it was elected by the people. So, anything you do other than democratic process is illegitimate. That’s why it makes it more difficult to remove a civilian, a bad civilian government than a bad military government. Now, the only way to deal with a bad civilian government, we have agreed, is only through legitimate means.

Protest. Election. And the constitution provides for all these. That people can come out and express to say, “no, we don’t agree with this, you cannot do this”. Because when the elected representative of the people conspire against the very people that elected them, then who protects the people? So, it seems that everybody has surrendered and left the job of opposition to the politicians alone. But there has never been a time in the history of Nigeria where it’s the politicians alone that fought for this country. What is going on? You’ll expect that ASUU will feel insulted that this is what we do. We teach children, you cannot make a law that legitimizes certificate forgery. But ASUU says nothing. NLC says nothing. You only hear them when they are demanding for more salaries. But NLC, labour has always been at the forefront of protecting the conscience of this nation.

As a matter of fact, where is the media? All through the Abacha era, all through the civilian era, the media was at the forefront of protecting the conscience of Nigeria and Nigerians. Everybody now appears demoralized, and I use that word technically and consciously. And we leave the job to just the politicians alone. What is the opposition doing? The opposition is not doing enough. At what point did we leave it to only politicians to fight for this country? Can’t we see that the fight ahead of us is a fi”ht for Nigeria? It is a fight”for the soul of this country? After pauperizing the people, did you see what is going on? I saw one video clip where people are to collect one kilo of rice, you show your PVC. Who exploits the people that way? And you say you are a Muslim, that you are fasting. And you’re asking them to come and show their PVC for you to give them rice to be able to eat iftar. Who does that? So, you pauperize the people, then you weaponize their poverty against them. People are dying every day, people are being kidnapped every day for ransom, and the only response is President Tinubu sharing rice. Do dead people eat rice? And that’s why ADC is saying, “Come back home. You have no business in the UK. Come back home. Your job is here. For once, do your job. Come back home”. But they don’t care. Because they treat Nigerians as a conquered people. They don’t care. No matter what they do, ADC will issue statements and people move on. They know the worst that will happen is ADC will issue a statement’ Right? When we said that 63% poverty level in Nigeria, since the removal of subsidy, has climbed from 40% to 63%, they responded. What did they say? They started abusing the opposition. They say we are inciting the people. Did we need to tell Nigerians that they are poorer? Did we need to tell Nigerians that they are hungrier? It’s the daily reality of people. Right? So, we said that they are plotting to make President Bola Tinubu the sole candidate in 2027.

How did they respond? They abused us. You see, sometimes they forget that they are a ruling party, that they are not the opposition party. Do you understand? Then when we criticize, they say, “Hey, what is your option? What alternative do you have?” You are the ruling party. Have you forgotten? The work of the opposition is to oppose you. You are the ruling party but they tend to forget that they are the ruling party. And their only response is to abuse the opposition. Where did you ever hear that it is the ruling party abusing the opposition? We don’t abuse them. We only point out what they do that is wrong. But they respond by abusing us. And you see this righteous indignation. As if, how dare you challenge President Tinubu? How dare you? They look at us like, how dare you? As if we are a conquered people. At least if you must enslave us, conquer us first. You must go through the trouble of conquering us first before you enslave us. But if you have not conquered us, you can’t enslave us. We are free citizens. If the only weapon we have is our voice, we will use it. If we are irritating you, we are sorry, you ask for the job, do it.

In the face of criticism of insecurity and bad economic situation against the ruling APC, do you think the ADC or any other opposition party would have done better than what the APC people are doing right now?

We would have done differently, not better. Because when you say better, it is comparative. It means that what they are doing is good. No, we would have done differently. Now, people have been asking one question. What is the ideology of ADC? They say political parties don’t have ideology. The ideology of ADC is very clear. When we came into the coalition, when the coalition went into ADC, we looked at that party and we asked ourselves, what is our job? We want to rescue Nigeria. Then we looked at ADC and we began to work on giving it a solid identity as an opposition political party in Nigeria that is ready to go into government. And we came to the conclusion, and it is very clear, the Africa in African Democratic Congress is not an accident. The foundational philosophy of ADC is that Nigeria has a duty to provide leadership for the rest of Africa.

That Nigeria has a duty to provide leadership for the entire black race. But Nigeria will only be able to do this if it makes the right investment in the Nigerian people to provide leadership. In other words, it is not the Nigerian nation that will provide leadership, it is the Nigerian people that will provide that leadership. But Nigerian people will only be able to provide leadership if we make the right investment in the Nigerian people to be productive, to be competitive. In other words, as long as Nigerians remain the fetchers of water and the hewers of wood, our population means nothing. Unless we have a population that is productive, that is competitive. Therefore, it means that ADC’s priority will be what? Logically, investment in the people: Education, health care, job creation, opportunities.

What it means is that when ADC will measure real progress, ADC will not measure progress by the growth of GDP, which is what this go’ernment is doing. ADC will measure progress by the number of people we are able to take out of poverty. Not by how our GDP grows. That’s a neoliberal interpretation of economic growth. But ADC is anchored on the principle of democratic citizenship: The people first. Now let’s talk about one fundamental issue so that we take this out of the arena of theory. Fuel subsidy: If you listen to the national chairman of ADC yesterday, Senator Mark, when he was receiving the interim report of the Policy and Manifesto Committee, he said the abrupt implementation of economic reforms has pauperized Nigerians more than ever before. That ADC will be deliberate in introducing any reform in a way that protects the people. The problem with subsidy is not subsidy itself. There is no country in the world that does not give one subsidy or the other. The problem with fuel subsidy, the way it was, it is the governance of that subsidy. In other words, giving fuel subsidy to everybody is wrong. Removing subsidy from everybody is equally wrong. What was happening was wrong. What they provided as solution was wrong. ADC will provide subsidy to those who need subsidy. We will not punish the poor people for the crime of the rich people. It’s not poor people that are smuggling petrol. Poor people don’t have five SUVs. Poor people just want to be able to survive. You cannot pursue a policy that punishes these people already. ADC will target subsidy to those who need subsidy. Therefore, ADC will do what is called means-tested subsidy. What is the financial situation of this family, of this person? In Malaysia, for example, they give a voucher that subsidizes petrol for the poor people up to 300 litres in a month. Until you buy more than 300 litres before you begin to buy at the market price. But as long as you don’t buy more than 300 liters, you buy at subsidized rate. There are examples all over the world. When this government came, President Tinubu, on the inauguration day, said that “subsidy is gone”, regardless of pain and suffering of the people. And they said, “Don’t worry, it’s temporary. Down the line, you will enjoy it”. Three and a half years going to four now. Are you enjoying it? Is your life better today than it was? And the question people are asking: All the money you said you were saving as a result of subsidy, where is that money?

Because I want to be able to go to hospital, for example. I said the subsidy from petrol that is rife with corruption, we are now subsidizing drugs. So I want to be able to go to the hospital. And the drug that I used to buy for X amount is now virtually free. And they say, “How come the drug is so cheap?” They say, “No, it’s subsidized”. In this country, there was PTF, you remember? We used to have what is called Excess Crude Account in this country, right? Now this government, when you ask them this question, they will say, “No, all the surplus money, all the money that we have given it to the states. So, go and ask your state governors. We have given the money to the states”. Are you surprised that all the governors have joined their party? Because the people would ask the question, “All that money you collected, what did you use it for? What did you do with it?” So they seek refuge in APC because a former chairman of APC said, ‘Come into our party and all your sins shall be forgiven”. No matter how dirty you are, APC appears to have a river in their party Secretariat.

Once they dip you in, you come out shining brighter than the snow, no matter how dirty you are. So, that is the situation we have found ourselves today. I’ve just articulated to you what ADC will do differently. So, it’s not a question of doing better. It’s a question of not doing the wrong thing. They tell us that, “Oh, tax, tax reform, tax reform. We will not tax poor people. It’s only big men that we are taxing”. If you go to any pharmacy today and buy any drug, you pay VAT. And VAT is regressive. It means that if you are a billionaire or you are a poor salary earner, you pay the same percentage of VAT in anything you consume. People can no longer afford to fly. Because the tax they’ve imposed on the airlines is pricing tickets out of the reach of ordinary people who need to move around. You cannot travel by road. Kidnappers are waiting for you. You cannot travel by rail now. The train is likely to derail. And when people cannot move around to do business, of course, what do you expect? Poverty will continue to compound. So, when you continue to suffer, President Tinubu has a solution. He will give you rice.

I’m curious, just like you are, that there are not many voices against some of these issues bordering on survival of the masses. Why are people not talking?

Yeah. I don’t know why they are doing what they are doing. Maybe they have given up. Maybe they are giving up. Maybe they are tired. Maybe they don’t have the consciousness. Maybe some of them have joined the ruling party secretly. Maybe some of them are collecting what everybody is collecting. Maybe people have become a lot more selfish and they care less about the people. Maybe. I don’t know. (Sunday Vanguard)