The aggregation of oppositionists in the country around the Action Democratic Congress, ADC is more than an anti-Tinubu coalition, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi has said.
Speaking in an interview, Abdullahi, a former minister of sports and also former spokesman of the All Progressives Congress, APC disclosed that he was also not a placeholder for Senator Bukola Saraki in the ADC.
Abdullahi who spoke in an interview on Arise News Television monitored by GWG.ng said that the ADC came about to save the nation’s democracy in the face of what he described as the assaults by the present administration.
“I think that we need to take a more broad approach to the conversation about the coalition. Number one, it has been described as an anti-Tinubu coalition. It goes much, much more beyond that.
“It’s not just about the president. It’s more about saving Nigeria’s democracy. We have watched the last couple of months about how almost all the opposition parties have been decimated, whether willingly or unwillingly, through internal self-sabotage or machinations by external forces.
“Now, for some of us, the most important thing is that how do we, as Nigerians, allow a situation that was staring us in the face, where by 2027, God forbid, the only political party that will remain viable to contest the election will be APC.
“Now, the coalition in ADC is out to prevent such an unfortunate situation where Nigerians will be presented with no alternative and no options, no choice.
“Many of us are old enough to remember a time in this country when there were five political parties and all of them, except maybe one, ended up endorsing General Sani Abacha as their presidential candidate. It was a sense of deja vu, like, oh, are we back in that era? Therefore, every single person that is not in the APC decided to come together to say, look, we need to save the democracy for this country that many people died for.
“Now, having said that, it is also clear that the situation that we have faced in this country is a situation that so many people, for the first time, perhaps are asking themselves, is this really democracy? Is this really democracy? Look at the National Assembly.
“The essence of the National Assembly is to provide constitutional check against excesses of presidential authority. When you look at the National Assembly, it has clearly become the appendage of the executive. All these are the fundamental issues around which the coalition is being built.”
Mallam Abdullahi also dismissed the contentions of the 2023 ADC presidential candidate, Dumebi Kachikwu against the coalition describing it as another scheme by the APC administration to extinguish opposition in the country.
“So all these things that he’s (Kachikwu) just coming up to say… we’ve been on this ADC thing for quite a while, right? This process of coalition has started for a very long time. So why is he suddenly coming up, the day of the unveiling, to start throwing up these issues? (Courtesy: GWG)
