A chieftain of the African Democratic Congress, Mallam Salihu Lukman, has appealed to ex-Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai and other political bigwigs not to throw the party into further chaos in their bid to control the party’s structures in Kaduna State.
Lukman, a former Vice Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, made the plea in Abuja on Wednesday, noting that the ADC risks implosion if its leaders remain fixated on who controls its platforms ahead of the 2027 elections.
His caution comes amid rising tensions over the recent move to remove former Senate President David Mark as national chairman of the ADC.
“Instead of working to build the party, we are setting ourselves to produce a party whose business will be limited to presenting candidates for elections. People with ambition to contest elections have become restless and want to dominate the process of developing the structures of the party to the exclusion of their opponents,” Lukman lamented.
The former APC chieftain stressed that the same power tussle that led to the bid to oust David Mark at the national level was already manifesting in Kaduna, warning that such internal battles could weaken the opposition before 2027.
“The madness of controlling structures of ADC is the biggest threat before us,” he said. “If ADC is to emerge as a strong party capable of defeating the APC in Kaduna State, we must agree to work together.”
Lukman directly appealed to El-Rufai and other party bigwigs like Jaafaru Sani, and Bashir Saidu to resist the temptation of backing aspirants bent on capturing the ADC structures for selfish ends.
“I want to appeal to Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, Mallam Jaafaru Sani and Alhaji Bashir Saidu as opposition leaders in Kaduna State to please stop encouraging the madness of aspiring candidates seeking to take over structures of ADC to the exclusion of so-called opponents,” he said.
He warned that without unity and collective leadership, the ADC risked repeating the mistakes of traditional parties that were reduced to electoral platforms for power-hungry politicians.
“It is only if we are united in ADC that we can be able to unite our people in the state to defeat the APC in 2027,” Lukman stressed.
“We must bear in mind, it is not just about defeating APC but more about producing a government controlled by our party based on collective leadership. We need to put an end to the era when we produce emperors as governors.”
ADC, founded in 2016, was reorganised as a strong opposition under the opposition coalition by prominent politicians such as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Senate President David Mark, to unseat the APC in 2027.
Punch Newspapers
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