The African Democratic Congress Presidential Campaign Council (ADC-PCC) has condemned the inauguration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council in Abuja, describing it as a calculated attempt to impose a one-party dictatorship on Nigeria.
The ADC-PCC Director of Media and Publicity, Kola Ologbondiyan, stated this while reacting to the inauguration ceremony on Wednesday.
Ologbondiyan alleged that the ruling party was undermining Nigeria’s multiparty democracy by allegedly coercing opposition governors into its fold or incorporating them into its presidential campaign council despite their refusal to defect from their respective political parties.
“What we are witnessing is not politics but political abduction. You cannot claim to be a democrat while using state power to force opposition governors into your party and then drafting them into your campaign council. This is political banditry,” he said.
He accused the APC of pursuing a political agenda that could concentrate power in the hands of one individual, alleging that key national institutions, security agencies and the judiciary were being deployed to weaken opposition forces.
The ADC-PCC spokesman urged Nigerians of conscience to resist what he described as the emergence of an immoral political order driven by the desire to retain power at the expense of citizens’ welfare.
According to him, the ruling political establishment has shown little concern for the worsening economic hardship, hunger and insecurity confronting ordinary Nigerians.
“These particular sets of leaders don’t care about the current conditions of the people but how best to remain in power at a time when average Nigerians find it difficult to eat and be secure,” he said.
“I appeal to Nigerians of conscience to stand up against this birth of immoral politics by those who care less about the suffering of the people.”
Ologbondiyan further alleged that Nigeria’s democracy was facing one of its most difficult periods, citing what he described as the suppression of dissenting voices, harassment of opposition figures and weakening of democratic institutions for partisan interests.
“Never in our democratic journey have we witnessed this level of intolerance and desperation. The APC government has weaponised poverty, hunger and insecurity to subjugate Nigerians and cripple the opposition. This is not the democracy for which Chief M.K.O. Abiola and other martyrs paid the supreme price,” he stated.
The ADC-PCC spokesman maintained that the presidential ticket of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi possessed the experience and democratic credentials required to restore democratic governance and reunite the country.
He specifically described Atiku as a committed democrat with the national reach and political experience to address the country’s challenges and rebuild public confidence in democratic institutions.
“Atiku Abubakar is a democrat to the core. He has the national spread, the capacity and the will to reunite Nigeria and restore our battered democracy, which the APC has destroyed.
The fate of Nigeria’s democracy rests on him to save it from total collapse,” Ologbondiyan declared.
The ADC-PCC called on Nigerians, media organisations, civil society groups and the international community to oppose what it characterised as the APC’s anti-democratic agenda and support efforts to protect Nigeria’s multiparty democracy.
