By Omeiza Ajayi
From obscurity to opposition powerhouse. That is the story of the African Democratic Congress ADC.
On March 23, 2021, the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee CECPC of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC had said it was putting in place mechanisms that will assist the party retain power at the centre for, at least, the next 34 years. This is 2025. APC has been in power for the past 10 years. Can it stay in power for the next 24 years?
APC will not be the first to boast this way as the Peoples Democratic Party PDP at the zenith of its power also boasted that it would rule Nigeria for 60 years from 1999.
But APC’s aspiration is now threatened. The political landscape in Nigeria is buzzing with the emergence of the ADC as a formidable force, potentially threatening APC’s hold on power in the 2027 Presidential Election.
Since 2018 when it was first adopted by a coalition movement, the ADC has rapidly escalated its influence, culminating in a high-profile takeover by a coalition of opposition figures on Wednesday, July 2, 2025.
From a “corner shop” (or Kiosk as its erstwhile chairman puts it) as its national secretariat in Nyanya, a bustling town in Abuja which shares boundary with Mararaba in Nasarawa state, ADC today has its national secretariat within the city.
While ADC already acquired the secretariat before its recent adoption by opposition coalition partners, its humble beginnings cannot be overlooked. Political pundits predict that its current disruptive influence on the polity which has witnessed the high and low resigning from different political parties and picking up registration forms of the ADC, could see the party being catapulted to the Presidential Villa in 2027.
Wednesday, 2nd July 2025 was the day high profile opposition politicians gathered at the Shehu Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja to formally take over the structure of the African Democratic Congress ADC after 18 months of political horse-trading, troubleshooting and compromises.
‘We came prepared’
During the 18 months of negotiations, the coalition partners ensured that they took care of all possible legal lacunae.
Asked about when the ADC would hold a national convention to ratify its new leadership and whether there are plans to amend the constitution to take care of issues that might arise in future, Interim National Publicity Secretary of the party, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi told newshubng that all the issues had been taken care of.
He said; “All these things have been taken care of before we joined. The necessary amendments to the constitution were made to allow for new interim executive and allow for new members to hold party positions.
“These amendments followed all necessary processes, including allowing the National Executive Committee NEC to act in place of The Convention.
“The interim leadership that we have now, therefore, does not require any further ratification. The elective national convention will hold as constitutionally scheduled”.
The event saw some ministers in the Muhammadu Buhari administration as well as some former members of the National Working Committee NWC of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC.
Also on the roll call were former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Labour Party LP Presidential candidate in the last election, Mr Peter Obi and a host of others.
The decision to arrive at the ADC did not come easy as there were disagreements among the stakeholders, some of who argued for the registration of a new political party. Indeed, an attempt was made in that direction as some elements of the anti-Bola Tinubu coalition applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC to register the All Democratic Alliance ADA as a political party.
However, others had disagreed, believing that INEC might not register the association and that even if it does register it as a political party, the time from now till the 2027 election might be too short to mobilize aggressively and drive the party into the consciousness of Nigerians.
Today, the ADA has now become a fallback option – a Plan B. Aside ADA, checks revealed that some of the over 100 applications before the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC for registration as political parties, are also sponsored by some coalition elements as Plans C, D, E and so on.
Lessons from the Past
The ADC is treading a familiar terrain, meaning that it must have learned some lessons from its first outing as a coalition platform.
Ahead of the 2019 General Election, former President Olusegun Obasanjo had floated a political movement, the Coalition for Nigeria Movement CNM. In 2018, the Obasanjo’s CNM adopted the African Democratic Congress ADC as its political platform.
While Obasanjo’s voice carried (and still carries) great political value, the same could not be said of its electoral value.
When the CNM adopted the ADC as its political platform in 2018, the leadership structure of the ADC effectively became the operational leadership of the “coalition” for the purpose of the 2019 elections.
Obasanjo and his men were not exactly in charge of the party they had adopted, as the National Chairman of the ADC at the time, Chief Ralph Okey Nwosu still held sway. Also, other national and state executives of the ADC were still in charge. Obasanjo’s adoption of ADC was more in theory than practical.
The alliance proved largely symbolic, with Obasanjo’s influence failing to translate into significant electoral gains.
And so it was that while Obasanjo’s endorsement boosted ADC’s visibility and membership, the party’s presidential candidate in 2019, Obadiah Mailafia, ultimately placed a distant 4th in the election.
Changing landscape, New Strategy for the Future
The situation today has changed in terms of the political landscape and the strategy being adopted by the new ADC leaders.
Unlike President Muhammadu Buhari who seemed politically laid back when Obasanjo’s CNN adopted the ADC in 2018, today’s incumbent, President Bola Tinubu is a political titan, a formidable foe – a kingmaker who has now taken the sceptre and the crown for himself.
But the strategy has also changed. Unlike the Obasanjo “one-man show”, today’s ADC is a broad-based coalition of opposition and some aggrieved ruling party politicians who seem ready to draw blood politically.
For a start, Nwosu and the National Secretary of the ADC, Alhaji Saeed Baba Abdullahi led the National Working Committee NWC of the party have stepped down.
in their places, former Senate President, David Mark has stepped in as Interim National Chairman of the party and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola as Interim National Secretary.
Mark’s appointment is seen as a masterstroke which many analysts did not see coming. Mark had held himself as if belonging to the class of former Head of States, who would most often never criticize a sitting government, only using back channels of the platform of the National Council of State to reach an incumbent.
Why APC should be worried
Since the adoption and unveiling of the ADC, the Ali Bukar Dalori-led APC has been all over the news downplaying the significance of the coalition platform and its promoters – a development that has seen many accuse the ruling party of being in a panic mode and giving free oxygen of publicity to the opposition party.
But should the APC be worried? Of the 36 states, the ruling party has 23, with multiple party sources disclosing that APC is working on enticing Governors of Bayelsa, Enugu, Osun and Plateau states to its fold. If this happens, the party will now have 27 governors, leaving the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Labour Party LP and New Nigeria Peoples Party NNPP with 9 combined while the ADC is left with none.
When APC in 2013 perfected the merger of some legacy parties, it was not really something new, but the scale of the merger was significant and caused ripples within the then ruling PDP.
Today, coalition partners have not merged but they are abandoning their parties for the ADC. While some have resigned outrightly form their parties, others say they would remain in their parties but campaign with and for the ADC.
Talks with Govs
In deed, one of the leaders of the coalition told Vanguard that some Northern governors were in talks with them.
He waved off suggestions that the ADC could be weakens by the defections of governors to the APC, saying the defections can only happen in the South where Tinubu comes from. “No Northern opposition governor will defect to the APC. In fact, many of them are already talking with us because the defecting Southern governors are only fuelling suspicions that the battle of 2027 is a straight fight between the North and the South”, he said. If that happens, it could prove disastrous for the APC because with Peter Obi in the opposition coalition, the ruling party would have a lot of work to do in the South East. It’s best bet would be the South South and the South West but even Lagos is still shaky.
Talks with PDM
Atiku and Tinubu were at various times members of the Peoples Democratic Movement PDM, founded by the late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua
Founded in 1994, PDM later became a registered political party in August 2013 but was deregistered along with some other political parties in 2020 by INEC. However, it still has offices in several states of the country.
Some ADC leaders are said to be in talks with PDM, but the movement has not taken a position on who to support.
While the PDM supported Tinubu in the 2023 elections, their current non-committal stance keeps their options open for the upcoming elections.
Literacy level
The World Bank collection of development indicators In 2021 revealed that Nigeria’s adult literacy rate (for individuals aged 15 and above) is estimated to be 63.16 percent.
Despite this, some common errors seen during elections indicate that there is a lot of voter education that needs to be done.
Both the APC and ADC are similar in pronunciation. Even the Master of Ceremony at the unveiling of the ADC at a point called APC instead of ADC. While he quickly corrected himself, what this means is that the two parties can easily be confused even though they have different logos.
Where such confusion exists, the ADC obviously have the advantage as a result of the fact that parties are listed alphabetically on the ballot – meaning that ADC is listed before APC. A voter who is in a hurry or who doesn’t know the difference would thumbprint for ADC even if he had intended to vote for the APC. The ruling party therefore has a lot of sensitization to do in this regard.
APC’s faulty Reward System
Many foot soldiers of the APC had since its inception complained about the party’s faulty reward system. The situation was so embarrassing under the last administration, that dead men were given appointments while the living were bypassed.
It does seem that the Tinubu administration has been trying to reset the party’s reward system but that is only at the federal level, as widespread grumblings persist in several APC-controlled states by those who claimed to have worked assiduously for the party and yet they haven’t been rewarded. This has continued to fuel resentments among grass roots politicians.
If the situation is not remedied, APC should be ready to lose more members at the grass roots in the coming days.
The adoption of the ADC by the coalition,actually came as a surprise to many. While opposition elements sold the ADA kite, they were quietly working on using another platform. The recent declaration of interest by former Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi to contest the presidency under the ADC banner could be another strategic “kite” being flown to divert attention while efforts are being made to build a consensus around a more formidable candidate.
APC should be worried, and rightly so. The prevailing high level of discontent among the populace, exacerbated by the astronomical rise in the cost of living, provides fertile ground for the ADC to gain traction. It is this sentiment that the ADC is feeding on.
With an Atiku, Obi, Amaechi, David Mark and Nasir El-Rufai having a handshake, the APC may need to adopt a more humble approach, acknowledge its shortcomings, curb the ostentatious lifestyles of its leaders and implement policies that significantly reduce energy costs and improve the livelihoods of ordinary Nigerians. As the saying goes, “A hungry man is an angry man.”
The Task Ahead
While the ADC has undeniably jolted the ruling party into a new reality, it faces a monumental task within a limited timeframe.
The party needs to establish a robust national secretariat with adequate infrastructure and a competent bureaucracy. This move will signal their seriousness and long-term commitment. Having functional States, Local Government and Ward offices is a task to be done within the shortest time of it has hoped of defeating the incumbent.
The next thing is massive publicity. Sensitization and mobilization of human and material resources is something that it cannot leave to chance. They cannot simply assume that public dissatisfaction with the Tinubu administration will automatically translate into support for their platform.
Roll Call
At the unveiling, Vanguard sighted several high profile politicians, many of them possessing both political and electoral values. For want of space, some of those identified by Vanguard were former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; 2023 Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party LP, Mr Peter Obi and his running mate, Datti Baba Ahmed; former Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal; former Governor of Cross River State, Liyel Imoke; and, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF, Engr. Babachir Lawal.
Some former APC NWC members who were there included the former National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun; former spokesman of the APC, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi; former Caretaker National Secretary of APC, Senator John James Akpanudoedehe; and, former National Vice Chairman, Northwest, of the APC, Salihu Moh. Lukman.
The roll call also included four ministers in the Muhammadu Buhari administration – Rotimi Amaechi (Transportation); Rauf Aregbesola (Interior); Ibrahim Malami SAN (Attorney General and Minister of Justice); and, Barr. Solomon Dalung (Sports).
Others were former Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai; Gen. Tunde Ogbeha (retd), former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Uche Secondus; former Kwara State Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed; former Governor of Adamawa state, Jubrilla Bindow; former Imo state Governor, Emeka Ihedioha; former Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Baba Abubakar, Senator Ishaku Abbo; Senator Dino Melaye; Senator representing the Federal Capital Territory FCT, Ireti Kingibe; and activist, Aisha Yesufu.
The list also included former Deputy Governor of Kogi State, Simon Achuba; former Edo State Governor, Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor; Senator Lee Maeba; former Inspector General of Police IGP MD Abubakar; former Benue State Governor, Gabriel Suswan; Ovation publisher, Aare Dele Momodu; former Presidential adviser, Kashim Imam; Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe; Dr Mani Ibrahim; Ms Lauretta Onochie; ex-Rivers Governor, Celestine Omehia; Maryam Inna Ciroma; Senator Aishatu Binani; former Governor of Kogi State, Capt. Idris Wada; former deputy governor of Ondo State, Agboola Ajayi; and, Senator Victor Umeh
This diverse gathering underscores the breadth of the opposition coalition and the significant challenge they pose to the APC.
-Omeiza Ajayi, is an Abuja-based journalist.
