Former APC National Vice Chairman and top promoter of the emerging anti-Tinubu coalition, Salihu Lukman, has ruled out the possibility of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) surrendering its political structure to any aspirant ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Naija News reports that Lukman made this known on Tuesday during an appearance on Jigsaw, a political programme aired on African Independent Television (AIT) and monitored in Abuja.
The former minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has already declared interest in flying the ADC’s flag for the 2027 presidential election.
However, speculation is also rife that former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party’s 2023 standard bearer, Peter Obi, may be eyeing the same ticket under the new coalition platform.
But Lukman made it clear that while the party welcomes credible individuals into its fold, it is not willing to mortgage its structure for any high-profile aspirant.
He said, “We took our time. We did not negotiate with just one individual; we negotiated with the whole leadership.
“What we are telling everybody in the coalition is that the structures of the party will not be handed over to aspiring candidates.
“We have to build the structures of the party in such a way that the party is strong enough and can regulate the conduct of everybody, not just aspiring candidates, but even elected representatives when they win office and assume positions.”
On how the coalition scaled all the legal hurdles before unveiling ADC as its political platform, Lukman said, “I can tell you that we opened negotiations with a wide range of parties and we went through processes including conducting legal due diligence on the status of both the leadership and if there were any pending litigations. In the process, we were also able to check with INEC and get all the substantive issues.
“I can tell you, some of the issues being raised in the public about some of the litigations, there are issues which, even by INEC records, if you go there, you will find out that they have been resolved long ago.
“At a point, we even had to sit down with all the members, in fact more than once, all the members of the National Working Committee of ADC.”
The former National Vice Chairman of APC also disclosed that the ADC 2023 presidential candidate, Dumebi Kachikwu was no longer a member of the party.
He said, “I want to make it very clear and if you check with INEC, you will find out that even the Dumebi Kachikwu, who came out to make noise, by the records of INEC, based on the Certified True Copies of proceedings of organs, legitimate organs of the ADC, Dumebi Kachikwu and some others, I think about 15 of them, had been expelled from the party. I can’t remember exactly when. So, we didn’t go into this blindly.
“We were very clear that we were on very safe ground, and proceeding further, we are not supplanting the leadership of ADC. We have accepted to work with them as partners, they are stakeholders and I am sure in not too distant time from now, the interim leadership of the party led by Senator David Mark and Aregbesola will release possible guidelines to guide the position at the state level and how the whole reorganization of the structures of the party will proceed.
“So, I want to make it very clear, we are not approaching this activity based on the conventional process of just going to hijack a structure and begin to organize it in such a way we produce candidates and this led me to the critical point and I think we have to continue to talk to ourselves as members of the coalition we came this far largely because we have appealed to all our leaders to please suspend expression of their ambitions until we are able to build structures.
“We have succeeded so far, which is why we are able to have the unity you have seen and I think that suspension of expression of ambitions has to continue. I can see some leaders have already become hyper-reactive.
“The coalition and 2027 are not all about producing candidates who will end up producing another disappointment, which is basically about producing unaccountable leaders and if care is not taken, also producing another set of emperors as elected representatives who will not listen to the party just the same way we have a situation where leaders of APC today don’t do not even respect the party.”
Lukman also revealed that there is no difference between the All Democratic Alliance (ADA) and ADC, adding that both the ADC and ADA were decisions of the coalition.
He said, “A special committee was set up by the coalition, and it was based on the determination that we are not going to leave anything unturned to ensure that by 2027, we present an option to Nigerians. We are not going to allow a situation where the country is set up for a one-party state.
“So we spread our tentacles and ensured that we went ahead and mandated the committee to put up the application.
“All we can say is that whatever happens, Nigerians will have an option. Our right as Nigerians, as provided by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to participate in elections will be exercised beyond the confines of the APC. We are not going to allow a situation where the country is set up for a one-party state.”
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