• Power-grabbers, ambitious politicians threaten ADC existence, says Lukman
• Party flays proposed sale of NNPCL, by Tinubu govt
Senate President Godswill Akpabio has declared that more governors from opposition parties are on the verge of crossing over to the All Progressives Congress (APC), riding on the back of President Bola Tinubu’s reforms.
Meanwhile, a founding member of the opposition African Democratic Congress (ADC), Salihu Lukman, has raised the alarm that the party might not make headway in the 2027 poll due to the antics of those bent on grabbing power and controlling the party’s structure.
The ADC also accused the Tinubu government of deliberate plans to plunder Nigeria’s collective national wealth, including the sale of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
In a statement by Akpabio’s media assistant, Jackson Udom, the Senate president spoke in Owerri at the launch of Governor Hope Uzodimma’s book, ‘Ten Years of Impactful Leadership of the APC Administration in Nigeria’, and the commissioning of projects, where he said Tinubu’s performance had begun to win over sceptics.
“Mr President, with what you have done in the last two years, get ready to receive more governors from the opposition. As I speak, many are already preparing to join you,” Akpabio told the gathering.
He argued that ordinary people were already testifying to the impact of Tinubu’s policies.
Lukman, in a statement yesterday, claimed that some of the leaders of the party had taken sides with aspiring candidates for the 2027 elections across the state to the exclusion of others.
Having resigned his membership of APC due to the alleged absence of internal democracy and disregard for party constitution, Lukman claimed that, for whatever reason, his ilk, who wanted the ADC to be an equal-opportunity party, were being condemned by anti-democratic forces in the party.
He particularly appealed to the former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, as well as Jaafaru Sani, Bashir Saidu and other opposition leaders in Kaduna to stop encouraging “the madness” of aspirants seeking to take over
ADC structures to the exclusion of so-called opponents.
The National Publicity Secretary of ADC, in a briefing by Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, in Abuja, yesterday, to mark Nigeria’s 65th Independence anniversary, said despite the efforts of the founding fathers to have a prosperous country, “the state still staggers under the failures of Tinubu and the APC.”
ADC said it aligns with the position of oil unions interjecting the proposed sale of national assets, including NNPCL, to cronies and proxies.
The party maintained: “On the proposed amendments and the sell-offs, we also believe that if allowed to proceed, the planned actions of this administration would not only undermine Nigeria’s energy sovereignty, but also amount to a brazen transfer of public assets into private hands in a manner never experienced in the history of our country.
“We have carefully examined the proposed amendments to the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), and are convinced that this action forms part of a deliberate and calculated effort to hollow out NNPCL, dismantle institutional checks and balances, and pave the way for the fire-sale of Nigeria’s most valuable national assets to private, politically-connected interests at the expense of 200 million Nigerians They represent not reform, but regression, and they must be rejected.”
