Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi, and ex-Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai have reportedly adopted the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as the official platform for a new opposition coalition.
According to a Bloomberg article, the trio reached the decision after a high-level meeting held on Tuesday, signalling the formal emergence of the long-anticipated political alliance.
An anonymous source who confirmed the outcome of the meeting, said, “They have adopted the African Democratic Party as the coalition party — all of them (Atiku, Obi, El-Rufai) are working together. They came to the conclusion last night up till the early hours of this morning. You know politicians meet when we are asleep.”
The source further disclosed that the meeting included other leaders and stakeholders who subsequently established committees tasked with ironing out the coalition’s details and logistics.
“All the leaders and stakeholders of the coalition were there. They set up committees to dot the Is and cross the Ts, while preparing the way for the eventual public unveiling of the coalition. But effectively, as we speak, the coalition has been born,” the insider added.
Though the coalition has yet to announce an official unveiling date, the source suggested it will happen “very soon”.
Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, confirmed on Wednesday that while coalition talks were progressing, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was not considered a viable platform for the arrangement.
When asked whether Atiku was moving to the ADC and why the PDP was not considered the coalition vehicle, Lawal described the PDP as “a house we cannot modify,” stressing that its internal problems were too deep-rooted for it to serve as a credible vehicle for change.
“In all the analysis I’ve seen so far, nobody has ever bothered about, ‘let’s adopt PDP as the platform.’ We all agree that PDP has an incurable virus. No antibiotic can cure what is ailing PDP, and we don’t want to go into a house that we cannot modify, that is not willing to change. So PDP is not in that list,” he said during an interview with ARISE News.
Lawal revealed that the technical committee driving the coalition project had been weighing two main options — to form a new political party, or to adopt an existing smaller party with a national spread and reform potential.
“Do we get another party that we could move into, modify it, upgrade it, and strengthen it for elections, or do we register a new political party? We have technical committees of experts looking into both of this. And I am sure, as we speak, we are getting to the end of the process, and I think we’ll soon announce a party that we’ll move into, or maybe we’ll register a new party,” he said.
