The African Democratic Congress Presidential Campaign Council (ADC-PCC) has criticised the inauguration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council in Abuja, describing it as an attempt to weaken Nigeria’s multiparty democracy.
Kola Ologbondiyan, Director of Media and Publicity of the ADC-PCC, made the allegation on Wednesday while reacting to the inauguration.
He accused the ruling party of pressuring opposition governors to join its ranks or become members of its presidential campaign council, even when they had not formally left their 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.
Ologbondiyan further alleged that the APC was using key government institutions, security agencies and the judiciary to weaken opposition parties and concentrate political power.
He called on Nigerians to resist what he described as an unethical political system that prioritises staying in office over the welfare of citizens.
According to him, the ruling political establishment had failed to show sufficient concern for the economic difficulties, hunger and insecurity affecting 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.”
The ADC-PCC spokesman also expressed concern about what he described as growing political intolerance, harassment of opposition figures and the weakening of democratic institutions for partisan purposes.
He alleged that the government was using the country’s economic difficulties and security challenges to suppress citizens and undermine opposition parties.
“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.
Ologbondiyan argued that the presidential ticket featuring former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and former Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi had the experience and democratic credentials needed to address Nigeria’s challenges and restore public confidence in democratic institutions.
He singled out Atiku as a committed democrat, saying his political experience and national reach could help reunite the country and strengthen its democratic system.
“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 urged Nigerians, media organisations, civil society groups and the international community to oppose what it described as the APC’s anti-democratic agenda and support efforts to preserve multiparty democracy in the country.
