The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has raised concerns about what it describes as a deliberate attempt by the Federal Government to disrupt the opposition’s unity ahead of the 2027 general elections.
In a statement issued on Monday, the ADC claimed that the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led administration is working behind the scenes to weaken the growing strength of opposition parties, particularly the ADC, through intimidation and political pressure.
According to the statement signed by Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, who serves as the Interim National Publicity Secretary of the ADC and spokesperson for the opposition coalition, former party chairmen and executive members from states in the North-East and North-West were invited to a covert meeting by top federal government officials.
Abdullahi noted that the purpose of the meeting had nothing to do with matters of national security or peacebuilding. Instead, he alleged, it was designed to bully and pressure the party’s key members into taking sides against the new opposition coalition.
“We have credible intelligence that the aim of this meeting is not for national security or peacebuilding. It is to intimidate, coerce, and if possible, co-opt these individuals into a fabricated scheme against the opposition coalition. This is not politics. This is sabotage,” Abdullahi said.
The ADC expressed worry that such actions pose a serious threat to Nigeria’s democratic structure and warned that they could push the country toward a one-party system.
The party linked the alleged interference to two recent events — the Coalition Declaration on July 1 and the formal launch of the ADC as the coalition’s platform on July 2. These developments, it says, have unsettled the ruling APC.
“The July 1st Coalition Declaration, and the July 2nd unveiling of the ADC, have clearly rattled the ruling party. It is now obvious that the Tinubu administration, having lost the trust of the Nigerian people, cannot withstand the pressure of a united and credible opposition. But rather than correct its ways, it has resorted to its old playbook of destabilising opposition parties,” the statement continued.
The ADC urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to step in and check the actions of his officials, reminding him of how former President Goodluck Jonathan allowed opposition voices to thrive — a decision that paved the way for the APC’s victory in 2015.
“We call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to take note of these sinister moves by some of his appointees and call them to order. The President needs to prove to Nigerians that he is indeed a democrat. He needs to remind his men that if the Goodluck Jonathan administration were as intolerant and as subversive of the opposition, the APC would not have come to power in 2015 and he would not have been a President today,” the party said.
Reaffirming its stance, the ADC said it would continue to stand firm against any attempt to weaken democratic institutions or silence dissenting voices. It called on Nigerians to be alert and resist any effort to shrink the country’s political space.
“Let it be clear: the coalition movement is an idea whose time has come. This party belongs to every Nigerian who is tired of the lies, the manipulation, and the hardship. It belongs to every Nigerian who wants to restore decency, vision, and justice to governance. We would therefore not allow a handful of desperate men to turn Nigeria into a one-party dictatorship. And it would be our patriotic duty to resist it with every democratic means available to us,” the statement declared.
