The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has criticised Nigeria’s electoral process, claiming an attempt to weaken the country’s nascent democracy following the decision by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to withdraw recognition of key leaders of the ADC, in view of the ongoing legal disputes over the party’s leadership structure ahead of the 2027 general elections, news.ng reports.
On Wednesday, the electoral umpire delisted the names of Senator David Mark, former President of the Nigerian Senate, and Rauf Aregbesola, a former Governor of Osun State, as National Chairman and National Secretary, respectively.
This follows a ruling by the Court of Appeal, where INEC has no option but to remain neutral pending the outcome of the judgment by the Federal High Court.
In response, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, in an appearance on Arise Television on Thursday morning, made it known that the recent developments from INEC are a scheme to reduce the number of political parties ahead of the 2027 polls.
He said, “When we keep saying that there’s a plan to make President Bula Tunubu the only candidate on the ballot in 2027, people think we’re being hysterical, they think we’re just banding conspiracy theory,” he said.
He accused the Commission of orchestrating plans to sabotage the electoral system regarding the voter registration process.
He claimed, “All these points to INEC trying to create a chaos… asking every single person that has a voter’s card to go back to their polling units to revalidate those cards in a few months to the election is just plain anarchy.”
The party’s image maker added that such moves from INEC could happen under military rule, describing it as troubling.
“And it’s sounding uncomfortably familiar, only that the democratic context is what makes it strange. If we’re in a military rule, we can understand it. But we have found ourselves in a situation where everything is being done to ensure that the election in 2027 is a fair and complete and the Nigerians will be left with no option or no choice,” he stated.
Despite the decision by INEC, Abdullahi affirmed that the party would go on with its activities as planned.
“But we’ve seen how this has ended in the past. So, we are saying that we will go ahead with our congresses, we have given INEC 21 days’ notice, they have accepted the notice, so whether they come or not, we’ll continue with our congresses, we’ll continue with our convention,” he declared.
On the proposed voter revalidation exercise, Abdullahi said, “The issue of the registration that you mentioned, we issued a statement yesterday, we said INEC cannot do this because they know that it can only lead to one thing, chaos,” urging Nigerians to be watchful, “We can see our democracy unravelling before our very eyes… it is very clear what is going on and it should concern everybody.”
