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The spokesperson of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Mr. Bolaji Abdullahi, speaks with SAM NWAOKO on the expectations of the party as President Tinubu makes to appoint another chairman for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and other issues. Nigeria is set to get a new INEC chairman. President Tinubu will do us that honour of nominating or appointing while the confirmation is for other institutions. What kind of INEC chairman are you and your party expecting? Naturally, we would expect that the INEC chairman would understand the historic significance of the role he is expected to play. We expect an INEC chairman that would inspire the confidence of every stakeholder and every citizen, that elections conducted under him would be free, fair and transparent. That is the kind of INEC chairman that we would expect. But, if what we are hearing is anything to go by, we strongly doubt that we would get that kind of INEC chairman. What would you do about what you are hearing? Is there anything you can do about that? Well, we don’t want to be presumptuous. So, we will wait and see. However, if the kind of names we are hearing… people who obviously have links with the people in government, if those are the kind of people that would emerge as the electoral umpire, because if the electoral umpire is their crony why should I expect that I will be treated fairly? So when that happens, those of us in the opposition will have to sit down and evaluate our position and take a decision on how to respond. Given that, what would you advise the president on this, and what kind of person would you want appointed by way of advice? I don’t think that the president needs our advice. The president just needs to do the right thing. He needs to understand the historic significance of this moment. He has to understand that the rest of the world is leaving Nigerians behind. Ghana here is leaving us behind. Other countries are able to conduct free, fair and democratic elections which the world acknowledges. Even though they may not be perfect, the world is acknowledging them because they cannot be said to be compromised or to lack any integrity. So, what we expect the president to do is to recognise that, even though what we would wish is a situation that does not give the president the absolute discretion in this matter. But that is academic because as the law stands today, it is his prerogative to appoint the INEC chairman which is part of what we believe needs to change going forward. So, the president needs to understand that he has a duty to protect the country. He has a duty to build the institution. But, like I said, the president does not need our advice, he knows what is at stake for the country. So, we hope he will do what is right. The takeaway of your meeting on Thursday was that leaders of the party have decided to stick with the party and that they would remain with it. What explanations do you think the people should hold on to in all of these? The resolve was that the potential aspirants, the presidential contenders, said that they would support whoever emerges. They said that they are sticking with the ADC and that regardless of whether ADA is registered or not. The first thing is that everybody has intrinsic confidence in the leadership of Senator David Mark that he will not compromise and he will not give advantage to anybody to the detriment of another person; that he will be fair to all. So, it is because of that kind of ability to inspire confidence that encouraged everyone to say, look, in this kind of environment, even if I don’t win, I’m not going anywhere. I will support whoever emerges. Secondly, remember that when we attempted to register ADA it was part of our strategy to have a backup plan, in addition to looking for an existing political party. We have been successful with ADC and we want to direct all our energy and resources into building that rather than keeping our members and followers all over the country in the dark or sowing doubt in their minds about our possibility of doing something different. That is why the leadership has resolved that we will make it unequivocally clear to everyone that ADC is now our party and that we are going ahead with the ADC. If eventually ADA is registered, fine. If it is not registered, all good. Our party is ADC. The fact that ADA is listed as one of the parties being considered for registration does not mean that it will be registered. So, there is no point dividing our attention. So, the leadership decided that we should focus on what we have and build rather than continue to keep our members guessing about whether ADA will be registered or not. Recently your party contended that Nigerians won’t want Tinubu beyond 2027. How did you gauge the minds of the people to be able to arrive at that assertion? We live in this country. We are citizens of this country. Every single day we interact with people, we know what they are saying, we know what they are passing through. When President Tinubu came on board, he promised that there would be renewed hope. But has anybody’s hope been renewed since 2023? Rather, what you have is hopelessness. All the economic measures and all the policies that are introduced by the government… well, maybe you can say those will contribute to economic growth in one way or the other as they have been saying. But what is the point of economic growth that is leaving more and more people in poverty? What is the point of economic growth that is creating a situation in which people can barely survive on a daily basis? This is the situation. I don’t think that Nigerians love suffering so much that they would want to extend this current condition even by a single day. So, when they started talking about 2031 as you can see, when they were barely two years into their four-year tenure, what do you make of that? They are now campaigning and no governing is going on. Bandits have taken over a large part of the North to the extent that they are collecting taxes from Nigerian citizens. You see videos in which bandits rally villagers and address them as if they are the new landlords of the place. Entire villages have been sacked. So, what do we get? The president has spent more time outside of the country than he has spent in the country. If you ask any Nigerian if this is the direction they want the country to go or if President Tinubu is piloting the country in the right direction, the unequivocal answer would be no. That is why the constitution provides for reelection. Reelection is a kind of evaluation. After four years you submit yourself for a referendum. 2027 is going to be a referendum on President Bola Tinubu’s performance in the last four years. And we have no doubt in our mind that the answer would be no, in a free and fair election, which we believe and which we have no doubt is the only condition that would move this country forward. The answer will be an unequivocal no. If you listen to them, they are already talking about 2031 as if the next election is just a mere formality. That is arrogance and undemocratic. The idea of reelection is that Nigerians would look at your scorecard and hire you or fire you. What we are saying is that this government cannot mark their own answer script, it is Nigerians that would mark the answer scripts and we have no doubt in our minds what the answer is. You said the talk of 2031 when we still have 2027 is arrogance on the part of the people in government. Is that why you said Nigerians would not want him beyond 2027? Exactly. It is in that context, because we spoke in the context of a statement released by presidential media aides. The statement said that President Tinubu has no plan to stay beyond 2031. Why are they talking about 2031 as if 2027 is a mere formality, as if Nigerians have no choice or that Nigerians have no say in this? Who talks like that in a democracy, especially when your record of performance is so abysmal? That is the context. How does your party plan to address deplorable road infrastructure, power inadequacy and the general infrastructural challenges facing the country? What does your party plan to do differently? When the time comes, the ADC will unveil its plans and it is based on those plans that Nigerians will elect us in 2027. One thing that we have made clear is that ADC will not leave it to the discretion of anybody elected on its platform what to do with power. Even before our candidates emerge, ADC will communicate clarity on many of these issues, not just infrastructure but affordable energy, which is one area that is draining Nigerians today. Healthcare is such that may God help you if you fall sick in Nigeria today and you don’t have money. Food is taking almost everybody’s earnings today in this country, so ADC will make it clear what we intend to do in all these. The judicial sector, electoral reforms, internal security and so on, ADC will make its position very clear on these before our candidates emerge. So, any candidate that emerges on the platform of our party is clear what the party’s position is on these issues. The Senate has eventually unsealed the office of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan in the Senate, yet some senators have insisted that she must give a public apology over their controversy, after serving the six months’ suspension. What is the position of the ADC on this matter especially as it concerns legislative fairness, constitutional rights of representation and women participation? There are rules that guide the conduct and behaviour of elected officials in the National Assembly. If a member of the National Assembly errs under the rules, the National Assembly reserves the right to invoke the appropriate regulations or laws to effect discipline. But in the case of Natasha, it got to a point that it was looking like mugging, like somebody was determined to crush her. So, it went beyond merely disciplining an errant member and it was beginning to appear like persecution for some personal injuries or grievances. That was why, when she was sent on a six-month suspension, we didn’t say anything because there are rules guiding the conduct of members. But after the six months lapsed, and they were still denying her access to the National Assembly, we said no, this was becoming something else. So, we contributed our voice to that. We are glad that eventually they have allowed her access to her office. That is where we should draw the line and allow the woman to continue her role and responsibility of representing her people in the National Assembly. For those six months, the people of her district had been denied representation, they had been denied a voice in the National Assembly. Now that she has resumed, they should draw a line there and allow her to resume her work because if they allowed the matter to continue this way, it would give the impression that there was more to it. Already, women representation in the Senate is just 2.4 percent. Other women coming to the National Assembly will be looking at what is happening to this woman and be asking themselves how accommodating is the house for women? How tolerant for women would this club of men be? The very few women in the Senate are being subjected to persistent harassment. I think enough is enough. Given the fact that Tinubu has been endorsed for a second term by the APC, how confident is ADC in its desire to mount an effective challenge in 2027? What are the perceived biggest risks and challenges? There is only one risk. The risk is that government should not create a condition to rig the election. That is the only one risk. Even that, we are ready for it. We are fully ready for that. What they are creating in the minds of the people is to impose a fait accompli in the mind of the people. You hear people say no matter what we do, they will write the result anyway. No matter what we do, the election will not matter. We are aware of that and we are ready for it. So, we are going to do what is within our democratic rights to ensure that the election counts and we are taking all measures to do that. Secondly, an incumbent has been defeated before in Nigeria. The 2027 election is not going to be just between ADC and President Tinubu. It is going to be an electoral contest between the people of Nigeria who are tired of the misrule of the APC and the ADC. So, it is not just our party because today, what is clear is that either you are part of the ruling party or you are on the side of the people. And ADC is the party that is on the side of the people. ADC is the party that is saying enough is enough, people don’t have to suffer this much. Look at what they are doing with taxation. You have money in the bank, now they tax it, no matter how small. I hear that there will be another aviation tax from next year. Already the prices of air tickets are almost out of the reach of most people. They want to tax 5 percent they want the airlines to pass to passengers. ALSO READ: FULL LIST: 43 past Olubadan of Ibadanland Before President Tinubu came, the issue of banditry never passed a part of the country, now they are everywhere. Kwara State now is under siege. One woman was killed in Kwara State last week. That is why we are saying that Oyo and Osun and Ekiti governments need to adopt the firehose strategy. The firehose philosophy says if your neighbour’s house is on fire, and you have a firehose in your house, you should deploy it even though it is not your house that is on fire. This is because if you don’t, the fire will eventually come to your house. What we expect is that the governors of Oyo, Osun and Ekiti that have borders and are neighbours to Kwara State and the Federal Government to sit down and have a common approach to dealing with this, because if they don’t, if you know how Oyo North is intricately connected to the north of Kwara… So if we don’t take these measures now, this thing may eventually spread and once it enters Oyo, Osun or Ekiti, it has entered the South West also. While all these things are going on, you don’t hear any conversation about it, you don’t hear government talking about it. You don’t see any commitment about people losing their lives, about the insecurity spreading across the country. What you hear is 2031.
