The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has raised the alarm, saying its has uncovered clandestine plots by the Bola Tinubu administration to break its ranks and destabilise the party.
According to the ADC spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi, the party had credible intelligence linking the alleged plots to some key officials of the administration. He however, did not mention names.
Abdullahi said Tinubu’s men have summoned former ADC state chairmen in the Northeast and the Northwest, and some key members of their executive committees to a secret meeting in Abuja.
The aim of the said meeting, he said, was to intimidate, coerce, and if possible, co-opt the state chairmen in the two geopolitical zones into a fabricated scheme against the coalition.
“This is not politics. This is sabotage,” Abdullahi said, adding that it’s a dangerous plot by elements within the Tinubu administration to undermine and destabilise the growing 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.
“The motive is clear; to sow confusion within the party, delegitimise its new leadership, and derail its rising momentum as the new face of the opposition in Nigeria.
“Let it be clear, this surreptitious dalliance with the ADC State chairpersons by appointees of the federal government, who should be focused on urgent national security priorities and challenges that the country is facing, is a coordinated assault on multiparty democracy. This is how one-party states are born—through intimidation,” the ADC said.
Abdullahi said the ruling party was rattled by the coalition’s declaration of July 1 and its unveiling on July 2.
Continuing, he said, “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.
“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 opposition coalition called on President Tinubu to take note of “this sinister moves by some of his appointees” and call them to order.
The ADC charged the president 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.”
