A chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Dr Sani Dawop, said on Monday that about seven governors of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have secretly been funding an opposition coalition against President Bola Tinubu ahead of the 2027 general election.
Dr Dawop dropped the hint in an interview with Trust TV News.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election; Mr Peter Obi, a former Kaduna State Governor; Nasir El-Rufai; and a former Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, are spearheading the coalition.
Incidentally, the coalition is reported to be in talks with the ADC, with a view to securing the platform to challenge Tinubu in the next election.
“There are about six to seven APC governors who are funding the coalition. Go and check and go and do your investigation,” he said.
The ADC chief likened the ongoing realignments in the political space to when a breakaway group in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2013 joined other parties to form the APC that eventually routed the PDP in the 2015 presidential election.
“That is exactly what happened when the nPDP now joined APC in 2015. You understand?” he said, stressing that alignments and group interests are a constant feature in Nigeria’s multiparty system.
“In a political arrangement, you are free to have group interests. And that’s what you are talking about in PDP. You have the Atiku group, you have the Wike group and the others. The same thing with even the APC. You have the CPC group. You have the AD, which later became the ACN group. That’s the Tinubu group. They are still there. So those blocs are still there in politics.”
Dawop further said internal power blocs are not unusual and are often part of broader political strategies.
“It is part of the strategy in politics. You don’t release all your arsenals on day one. You have to keep some for the strategic moments, then you strike.”
“There are lots of issues that are happening that even within the APC, there are those who are not happy with the way things are going,” he emphasised
The ADC chieftain also criticised what he described as a lack of internal democracy among political parties and called for a fair political environment in future elections.
“You should provide a level playing field. That is a democracy. Let even people contest with the president.
“When Tinubu became president and won the ticket in the APC, he contested with other people. So if anybody feels so desired, those that are in APC that want to contest – that’s their own business anyway; they can go and contest, you understand.
“But they should allow a level playing field for those who are interested. The endorsements can go on. But I don’t think people should be suppressed; people should be denied the opportunity to contest, even with a sitting president, except if nobody shows interest. That is understandable.”
