The advent of the African Democratic Congress(ADC) in 2025 was received with substantial enthusism in political circles. The party came as a coalition of politicians opposed to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and its absolute leader, President Bola Tinubu.
ADC had promised a credible opposition and an alternative to the APC. That, of course, was a pitch, the type that politicians easily make at any point.
The mere declaration by the ADC that it had come to checkmate the APC was enough to arouse excitement. Why? Because ten years of APC leadership has become a yoke of unbearable weight to many Nigerians. The ruling party has offered more nightmare than hope.
ADC did not promise to draw its membership from Mars or Jupiter. Nobody expected that of it. The members of the new coalition were Nigerian politicians, a number of them even from the APC.
There was nothing about ADC that promised Nirvana. The coalition’s motivating goal to displace the APC, or at least give it a run for its money, was simply the source of hope for Nigerians. That is what democracy actually ordains. Ideas and policies should contend. The citizens should have alternatives to choose from.
Nothing about how ADC emerged was unprecedented or out of sync with the trend in Nigeria’s politics. As a matter of fact, the political trajectory that culminated in the emergence of ADC as a coalition platform was, more or less, a replica of how the APC came into being in 2013. The now ruling party emerged as a merger of political tendencies opposed to the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party.
The only known objective of the APC at inception was to dislodge the PDP. It achieved the goal rather fast. Not surprisingly, the party sank into cluelessly subsequently, to use the phrase it amply deployed to dismiss President Goodluck Jonathan, who it abused relentlessly and hounded to submission.
Against the backdrop of its history and emergence, APC would have been expected to be a paragon of tolerance to opposition and criticism. The opposite is the case. Rather than reconciling itself to criticisms and mending its many wayward ways, the ruling party appears to hold that the people do not even have any say in how their affairs are mismanaged.
The extent to which the Tinubu-led APC is going to undermine and obliterate opposition political parties is alarming, to say the least. Criticism and alternative political views appear to have become anathema before the Tinubu government. Meanwhile, the president uses every opportunity to declare his bona fides as a democrat.
If APC has not been seized by hysteria and mortal fear of electoral contests, it would have known that the ADC is still struggling to become. The ruling party would have focused on remedying its ways before Nigerians instead of losing sleep and resorting to all manner of under-hand strategies to run opposition parties out of the system.
The concept of an electoral democracy that will feature only APC and possibly a few kwashiorkor-infested parties of its choice in the upcoming 2027 election can only be possible in APC land.
Although the ADC has been managing to maintain an image of internal cohesion and collective determination to contend with the APC, it does not take much effort to see that the party is still far from being a potent political party.
Critical issues that should define the party, its essence, and its enduring bearing are yet to be settled. The clash of ambition among the major personalities in the party, as well as a definite stand on such defining issues as zoning, are still hanging.
The ADC, therefore, has its own problems to sort out. But while it is preoccupied with that, it offers Nigerians the prospect of an alternative to the APC.
The multi-dimensional efforts being made by the Tinubu-led APC to undermine and kill the ADC constitue an assault on democracy. It is a dangerous gambit that may yet undo all.
Hardly does a week pass these days without reports coming from various parts of the country of violent disruption of ADC meetings by thugs and gunmen. There is silence from both the government and security agencies about these anti-democratic forces at work.
The ultimate aim of the assaults is not in doubt; ensure that ADC does not stand firmly anywhere. What if the PDP assumed that reprehensible posture when the APC came into being in 2013?
Last week in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State, the inauguration of the Young Women’s Wing of the ADC was violently disrupted by thugs. They scattered the canopies, chairs, and equipment at the meeting venue and dispersed the party faithful. The national women leader of the party later reported that they were warned by some local government officials, not to mention the name of the ADC, if they must hold any political meeting in the area.
Not too long ago in the same Rivers State, when a former governor of the state and a prominent ADC leader, Rotimi Amaechi led his supporters back to his home town to get registered as the law demands, the team was waylaid and violently attacked.
In Cross River state, an otherwise peaceful state, an anti-ADC violence has been recorded.
In Edo State, there had been multiple attacks and assault on ADC meetings. In fact, the APC leadership in the state openly declared that ADC should not even campaign in the state. Yet this is a party that has many prominent Edo citizens, including no less than two former governors in its fold. So, what manner of democracy is unfolding under the APC?
While all these physical assault on the ADC are going on, surreptitious but steady efforts are reportedly being made to foist confusion in the party through the courts. The ruling party does not appear to be relenting on its machinations to ruin all identified serious contending political parties and thereby foreclose a genuine electoral contest in 2027.
The scheming is proceeding on all fronts without let, obviously impervious to the likely danger inherent in the plot.
Having masterminded the passage of the Electoral Act 2026 which is indeed, not much more than a document designed to stifle opposition politicians and parties, the APC still appears to be as apprehensive of his electoral future as ever.
Nothing, not even the constant killing of citizens by terrorists in parts of the troubled country, not pervasive hunger across the land, not displacement by terrorists of numerous communities from their ancestral homes and not the choking economic condition which the citizens are contending with at the moment, appear to bother the ruling party as much as the existence of opposition political parties. This is simply sad.
There is still time, though short, for the APC to seriously address the problems of Nigerians and possibly win back some favour. It should retrace its step from these shadowy moves to destroy the ADC either by getting one projected foolhardy court to give the party the PDP treatment or allow some unknown thugs to continue to disrupt ADC meetings.
How APC expects to go to a general election with no serious competitor remains baffling.
A ruling party owes the society much more than controlling the common purse. It has an obligation to safeguard the values of the land. President Tinubu and the APC should simply face the reality of democracy. They should work hard to earn the people’s trust and not act as a bull in the China shop.
