2027: Coalition has options outside ADC — Lukman

… says Kachikwu long expelled from party

Amidst the growing internal discontent within the African Democratic Congress (ADC), one of the arrowheads of the opposition coalition, which joined the party, Salihu Lukman has said members of the Coalition would not allow themselves to be left politically stranded in 2027.

Checks revealed that a former presidential candidate of the ADC, Dumebi Kachikwu and a few others have rejected the interim National Chairman and Secretary of the party.

Kachikwu told newsmen last week that the erstwhile National Chairman of the ADC, Ralph Nwosu, did not take the entire National Working Committee of the party and other relevant organs into confidence before it sealed the deal with the coalition to hand the party national secretariat to Senator David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola.

Speaking on the AIT programme, Jigsaw on Tuesday, Lukman, who alleged that the Presidency was the mastermind of the recent crisis in the ADC, said members of the coalition have other options open to them, outside the ADC.

He cited the application for registration of the association, All Democratic Alliance into a political party as one of the options open to the coalition.

He said, “A special committee was set up by the coalition, and it’s based on the determination that we are not going to leave anything unturned to ensure that by 2027, we present an option to Nigerians. We are not going to allow a situation where the country is set up for a one-party state.

“So we spread our tentacles and ensure that we go ahead and mandate the committee to put up the application.

“All we can say is that whatever happens, Nigerians will have an option. Our right as Nigerians, as provided by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to participate in elections will be exercised beyond the confines of the APC.

“We are not going to allow a situation where the country is set up for a one-party state.”

Lukman who incidentally was former National Vice Chairman, North West of the All Progressives Congress equally revealed that Kachikwu was no longer a member of the ADC having been expelled by its National Executive Committee.

Lukman who maintained that the agitation against the interim national leadership of the ADC was a storm in a teacup declared that the Coalition did its due diligence before it settled for the ADC.

He said: “I can tell you that we opened a negotiation with a wide range of parties. And we went through processes including conducting legal due diligence on the status of both the leadership and if there are any pending litigation that are there. And in the process, we were able to also check with INEC and get all the substantive issues.

“I can tell you, some of the issues being raised in the public about some of the litigation, there are issues which, even by INEC record, if you go there, you’ll find out that they have been resolved long ago.

“At a point, we even had to sit down with all the members, in fact, more than once, all the members of the National Working Committee of ADC.

“So I want to make it very clear, and if you check with INEC, you’ll find out that even Dumebi Kachukwu, who came out to make noise, by the record of INEC, based on the certified true copies of proceedings of organs, legitimate organs of the ADC, Dumebi Kachukwu and some others, I think about 15 of them, have been expelled from the party. I can’t remember exactly when. So, we didn’t go into this blindly.

“And we were very clear that we were on very safe ground. And proceeding further, we are not supplanting the leadership of ADC. We have agreed to work with them as partners; they are stakeholders. And I’m sure in not too distant a time from now, the interim leadership of the party led by Senator David Mark and Aregbesola will release possible guidelines to guide the position at the state level, and how the whole reorganisation of the structures of the party will proceed.

“So I want to make it very clear, we are not approaching this activity based on the conventional process of just going to hijack a structure and begin organising it in such a way we produce candidate and this led me to the critical point and I think we have to continue to talk to ourselves as members of the coalition we came this far largely because we have appealed to all our leaders to please suspend expression of their ambition until we are able to build structures.

“We have succeeded so far, which is why we are able to have the unity you have seen.

“And I think that suspension of expression of ambition has to continue. I can see some leaders have already become hyper-reactive.

“The coalition and 2027 is not all about producing candidates who will end up producing another disappointment, which is basically about producing unaccountable leaders and, if care is not taken, also producing another set of emperors as elected representatives who will not listen to the party just the same way we have situation where leaders of APC today don’t don’t even respect the party.”

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