ADC Members Sue To Void Mark, Aregbesola’s Appointments
By Chibuzo Ukaibe, Kunle Olasanmi, Hussaini Jirgi and Emmanuel Mgheahurike
ADC Members Sue To Void Mark
As a legal battle begins over the legitimacy of the new African Democratic Congress (ADC) leadership, the coalition leaders have accused the President Bola Tinubu-led administration of orchestrating a plot to destabilise the movement.
The opposition leaders were reacting to moves by some aggrieved ADC members to seek legal redress over Senator David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola’s appointments as the party’s interim national chairman and national secretary.
The adoption of ADC as the opposition coalition platform last week sparked agitations by some aggrieved members led by the party’s former presidential candidate, Dumebi Kachikwu. These members have accused the new entrants of not following due process.
LEADERSHIP recalls that the former national chairman of ADC, Ralph Nwosu, had announced during the ADC’s unveiling that all party structures had been legitimately collapsed to accommodate the new leaders.
But the Benue State chairman of ADC, Elias Adikwu, was quoted in The Punch as saying, “We are not part of it, and we will not take it. They cannot come and take over from those who built it.”
Three members of the ADC have dragged the party’s new leadership before a Federal High Court in Abuja, seeking to nullify the party’s executive committee.
The plaintiffs, Adeyemi Emmanuel, Ayodeji Victor Tolu, and Haruna Ismaila, prayed the court to determine whether the party’s appointments were lawful.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Ralph Nwosu, Senator David Mark, Raufu Aregbesola, and Bolaji Abdullahi, the interim party chairman, secretary and spokesman, were listed as defendants in the party.
The plaintiffs asked the court for the following reliefs: whether or not the appointment of the 4th, 5th, and 6th Defendants (David Mark, Raufu Aregbesola, and Bolaji Abdullahi) as interim national chairman, national secretary, and national publicity secretary of the 1st Defendant (ADC) was made in breach of the provisions of the ADC Constitution, 2018 (as amended); whether or not, given the combined provisions of Article 9, paragraph D of the ADC Constitution, 2018 (as amended), the 4th, 5th, and 6th Defendants are qualified to hold the respective offices to which they were appointed, among others.
They also prayed the court to grant the following reliefs: a declaration that the appointment and nomination of the three politicians as interim national chairman, national secretary, and national publicity secretary of the ADC are unconstitutional, unlawful, and null and void.
In its response, the ADC interim national publicity secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, accused the Presidency of attempting to derail the coalition’s momentum through subterfuge.
He alleged that some presidential officials are out to intimidate, coerce, and co-opt individuals to work against the opposition coalition.
He revealed that former state chairmen and key members of the party’s state executive committees in the North East and North West had been summoned to a secret meeting with top federal government officials.
“We have credible intelligence that the aim of this meeting is not for national security or peacebuilding; it is to intimidate, coerce, and, if possible, co-opt these individuals into a fabricated scheme against the opposition coalition. This is not politics. This is sabotage,” the statement reads.
According to the ADC, the motive is clear: to sow confusion within the party, de-legitimise its new leadership, and derail its rising momentum as the new face of the opposition in Nigeria.
“Let it be clear, this surreptitious dalliance with the ADC State Chairpersons by appointees of the federal government who should be focused on urgent national security priorities and challenges that the country is facing is a coordinated assault on multiparty democracy. This is how one-party states are born—through intimidation,” the ADC said.
The party further claimed that the July 1st Coalition Declaration and the July 2nd unveiling of the ADC had rattled the ruling party.
It went on: “It is now obvious that the Tinubu administration—having lost the trust of the Nigerian people—cannot withstand the pressure of a united and credible opposition. But rather than correct its ways, it has resorted to its old playbook of destabilising opposition parties.
“Let it be clear: the coalition movement is an idea whose time has come. This party belongs to every Nigerian who is tired of the lies, the manipulation, and the hardship. It belongs to every Nigerian who wants to restore decency, vision, and justice to governance. We would therefore not allow a handful of desperate men to turn Nigeria into a one-party dictatorship. And it would be our patriotic duty to resist it with every democratic means available to us.”
The ADC called on President Tinubu to take note of the sinister moves by some of his appointees and call them to order.
“The President needs to prove to Nigerians that he is indeed a democrat. He needs to remind his men that if the Goodluck Jonathan administration were as intolerant and as subversive of the opposition, the APC would not have come to power in 2015 and he would not have been President today,” it said.
Several attempts to get the Presidency’s reaction were futile as of the time this report was filed, as calls and messages sent to its spokespersons were not attended to.