Since its formation in 2005, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) has never been a force to reckon with as a political party. It is more of a vehicle which utility value can only be guaranteed for the period that any user needs it. It is the same vehicle, wait for it, that Pat Utomi used to contest the presidential election in 2007.
Wikipedia, the online information portal, even describes Utomi as ADC founder. This information may not be entirely correct. I stand to be corrected, though. I say so because Utomi cannot be the founder of such a party that has no ideology and stands for nothing, according to Dumebi Kachikwu, its presidential candidate in the 2023 elections. It has been 20 years since ADC was formed in 2005, and 18 years that Utomi was adopted as its pioneer presidential candidate in 2007.
That was the party’s first-ever participation in national elections, and over the years, it has consistently failed to pull its weight in the polls, apparently due to the calibre of the candidates it presented. Elections anywhere in the world are not prosecuted by parading academic qualifications and pontificating on social and economic theories which a contestant cannot marry with the needs of the country (s)he wants to lead. The party and the person flying its flag must be versed in the art of politics, as well as its intricacies, and engage in acts that will endear it to the electorate.
Utomi parted ways with ADC in the 2011 election, as he contested that year’s presidential poll on the crest of Social Democratic Mega Party (SDMP) and lost again. Since then, he has been rolling with the waves like ADC. ADC has become the spirit or wanderer child known as abiku in Yoruba mythology. It is not a party in the true sense of the word. It is also not a platform. It is more of a vehicle that ambitious politicians board and disembark from when they get to their destination. If it does not take them to their destination, they dump it, and look for another.
This has been the fate of ADC. Its presidential candidates come and go. They do not stay to build it to a structure that can stand its own against other parties. Some strange bedfellows have now found home in the party. After a long search for a platform to build their so-called national coalition to challenge President Bola Tinubu in 2027, they finally settled for ADC. They may have berthed, but from the look of things, they seem not safely anchored yet. They are facing threats from some of those they met in the party who are protesting what they called the ‘hijacking’ of ADC.
The coalitioners or coalitionists, if you like, are desperate. Their desperation drove them to takeover ADC from a pliable national chairman, Ralph Nwosu, who has since stepped down from office for the soldier-politician David Mark, who was senate president for eight years. The row which broke out after the coalition’s takeover of ADC is proof that the deal was not tidy. Many things go into the signing, sealing and delivering of such arrangements, really.
Certain, if not all interests must be taking care of to avoid any fallout, the sort of which we are now witnessing in ADC. Kachikwu, who is leading those against the takeover, by virtue of his status as the party’s presidential candidate in 2023, should from all intents and purposes, be one of such interests. His candidacy may have expired with the election won and lost, but that should not have diminished his importance within the party. If he had won in 2023, he would have automatically become the party’s leader. His loss should not deprive him of that status, to the extent that deals would be struck behind him.
Though, strange bedfellows, Atiku, Nasir El-Rufai, Rotimi Amaechi, Rauf Aregbesola and Mark, among other leaders of the coalition settled for ADC because the party was divided. Where the Social Democratic Party (SDP) which they intially sought to ‘acquire’ stood firm because of the principled stand of its presidential candidate in 2023, Prince Adewole Adebayo, ADC was an easy pick.
Reason: Nwosu had the upper hand in the fight for ADC’s control with Kachikwu, and went with the coalition. He was excited when he gave away the party to the coalition in Abuja. Amid the pomp and ceremony, the crack within ADC surfaced. ADC is not for sale, Kachikwu thundered at another ceremony where he held court. ‘What the coalition bought is bad market as you cannot build something on nothing’, he said. This has always been the case with ADC in its 20 years of existence. Dead today and alive tomorrow.
It is this abiku nature of the party that has stunted its growth. Beyond the singing and dancing at the coalition’s ‘acquisition’ of ADC is the character of its champions. They are worlds apart on many fronts. They are diametrically opposed to one another on many socio-economic issues. They are only united now in their desire to wrest power from Tinubu. It is their right to seek to lead the country, but first, they should tell the people what they have to offer. Some of them had the chance to lead as vice president, senate president, governor and minister in the past, with nothing to show for their tenures in office.
Today, they are claiming that there is hunger in the land because of the economic policies of the present administration. What was the economy like in the immediate past administration in which Amaechi and Aregbesola served as transport and interior ministers? How did Atiku, who has suddenly become an anti-graft czar, help to fight corruption as vice president between 1999 and 2007? It is funny to see these people coming out to seek office again, considering how they ran the country in their own time.
Nothing best describes how some of them are than what Atiku and El-Rufai said about each other a few years ago during a rift sparked by the former Kaduna State governor’s memoir: ‘Accidental public servant’. It was a messy affair as the duo engaged in verbal warfare. El-Rufai, who believes that he is a saint, spoke of how Atiku influencèd things in the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) then in order to get favours for some firms. El-Rufai was BPE director-general and Atiku, National Council on Privatisation (NCP) chairman, by virtue of being VP.
In a statement entitled: ‘Atiku haunted by his corrupt demons’ on November 15, 2016, El-Rufai challenged Atiku to visit the United States (US) if the ex-VP was not culpable in wiring $40 million to that country in the famous Halliburton case. He added that Atiku was obsessed with the ambition of becoming president, and as such, ‘fond of spewing out lies in an attempt to rejuvenate his image’. What more can anyone add to this? As the Yoruba saying goes: fun r’awon niwon ma fun r’awon l’ogun je (they will poison themselves with their own hands).
How then can they redeem themselves under a party that is dying and returning to life every now and then? After 2027, that is if the party survives the Kachikwu onslaught, the electorate may not hear of ADC again until 2031, which is another election year.
Credit:The Nation