The African Democratic Congress (ADC) is being torn apart following allegations by a prominent chieftain, Salihu Mohammed Lukman, who accused the party’s interim leadership of godfatherism and plots to impose candidates ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Lukman, a former National Vice Chairman (North West) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and ex-Director General of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), made the allegation in a statement titled “ADC and the Prospect of Internal Democracy” released on Tuesday. …CONTINUE READING
The ADC, recently repositioned as a third force, was adopted by a coalition of key opposition leaders—including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; ex-governors Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna) and Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers); and other political heavyweights—as a common platform to challenge the ruling APC in the upcoming 2027 general elections.
As part of the merger arrangement, the party appointed former Senate President David Mark as interim national chairman and former Interior Minister Rauf Aregbesola as interim national secretary.
But Lukman warned that unless urgent steps are taken to guarantee internal democracy, the ADC risks becoming a mirror image of the old parties it seeks to replace.
“The truth is that the negative side of almost all our opposition political leaders is already at play,” Lukman said.
“Many are taking steps to manipulate the process of leadership reformation of the ADC. Loyalists are being promoted in a manner that suggests perhaps the 2027 elections are already won.”
He said the zoning formula for national leadership positions, which was intended to ensure inclusiveness, had been undermined by powerful coalition members who have now positioned themselves as zonal overlords.
“When the national leadership positions of ADC were shared among zones, the coalition leaders—who were merely nominees in the committee that negotiated the arrangement—promoted themselves to become the leaders of their respective zones,” he said.
Lukman expressed concern that this emerging trend could lead to the imposition of candidates at all levels, ignoring competence, public trust, and democratic values.
“The struggle to ensure that loyalists of leaders emerge as leaders of the reformed ADC to some extent disregards the consideration for intellectual capacity, integrity, performance track records, name recognition across all demographics, respect in community and political circles, independent-mindedness, and general acceptability to all or the majority of stakeholders,” Lukman stated.
“We must caution our leaders—Nigerians will not be deceived by any cosmetic design of presenting another party, which is only a duplicated copy of our old parties.”
He challenged the interim leadership under Senator Mark to prove its credibility by resisting undue influence and ensuring a transparent and merit-based internal selection process.
“The first test of Senator Mark’s leadership of the party is the extent to which he can mitigate all these and ensure that ADC is not a party controlled by godfathers. Coalition leaders must not impose surrogates as candidates across the board,” he said.
