By Allison Abanum
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) increasingly looks less like a political party with a future and more like a loose gathering of yesterday’s politicians—retired, angry, bitter, expired, and visibly frustrated by their repeated rejection at the polls. It is hard to identify any clear vision, mission, or new idea driving the party. What stands out instead is desperation: a frantic search for power, not to serve Nigerians, but to satisfy long-standing personal ambitions and political greed.
Take Atiku Abubakar as a central symbol of this exhaustion. Well into his late years and having contested the presidency multiple times, his political playbook appears unchanged. No fresh strategy. No bold new ideas. Just the same recycled promises, repackaged for each election cycle. Nigeria has moved on, but Atiku’s politics seem stuck in the past.
The ADC’s conduct further exposes its emptiness. With the next general election fast approaching, the party has been reportedly busy begging Peter Obi to join them. This alone signals weakness. A party with confidence in its ideology and leadership would not be scrambling for borrowed credibility so close to an election. It would be building structures, inspiring citizens, and presenting a coherent alternative. ADC is doing none of these.
Leadership choices also raise serious questions. A party that parades figures well into their seventies as its top leadership cannot convincingly claim to represent renewal or the future. Recycling the same old political faces—many of whom Nigerians already associate with years of stagnation—shows a deep disregard for the country’s youthful population and their aspirations.
Including controversial figures like Nasir El-Rufai in its leadership mix only adds to the confusion. Rather than signalling strength, it reinforces the image of a party that is ideologically empty, clinging to any familiar name it can find. Appointing someone like Rauf Aregbesola as party secretary further underlines how disconnected ADC appears from public sentiment. It feels less like strategic leadership and more like an insult to Nigerians who are demanding competence, clarity, and accountability.
In sharp contrast stands the All Progressives Congress (APC). President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not loved because he is perfect, but because he is decisive. He takes tough, often unpopular decisions—decisions many politicians fear—but necessary ones nonetheless. Tinubu is not managing Nigeria as a career politician obsessed with optics; he is confronting national challenges as a leader focused on long-term stability and reform.
Leadership is not about telling people what they want to hear. It is about doing what must be done. While ADC looks backwards, APC—under Tinubu—pushes forward, making hard choices to reposition the country, even when the cost is political comfort.
Nigeria does not need another gathering of angry, expired politicians recycling old ambitions. It needs leadership, courage, and direction. On that score, ADC offers little more than noise, while APC continues to define itself by action.
Even the acronym ADC – borrowing a leaf from the APC- shows its lack of vision and originality. The old African saying that when one cries, one must see, encompasses the need for Nigerians to see beyond the confused, arm-twisting tactics of ADC and see the rich future the APC is taking the country to.
The ADC is often portrayed as a platform that thrives more on grievance than on ideas. Rather than presenting clear policies, solutions, or a compelling vision for the country, its public conversation is dominated by negativity—anger at opponents, blame for the past, and endless complaints about who failed Nigeria and who should be removed next. What is striking is that the party appears louder in what it opposes than in what it actually proposes.
Many of the figures around the ADC were central voices in the campaign to remove Goodluck Jonathan from office. At the time, they painted him as unfit to lead and rallied public sentiment against his administration. Today, however, those same actors are seen seeking Jonathan’s goodwill and support, a move that exposes a deep inconsistency and a politics driven more by convenience than conviction.
Within the ADC, there is also a glaring credibility vacuum. There is no single figure who commands broad public trust based on integrity, performance, or fresh ideas. The leaders themselves seem aware of this weakness, which explains the desperation to court Peter Obi. Rather than building their own identity, ideology, and grassroots strength, they appear eager to hide under Obi’s popularity—hoping his reputation can serve as a canopy to mask their lack of substance.
In the end, the ADC comes across not as a movement powered by vision and renewal, but as a gathering of political actors united mainly by bitterness, recycled ambitions, and the fear of irrelevance—talking endlessly about negativity because they have little else to offer.
The ADC can be described as a group that appears unwilling to wish Nigeria well, a political camp that seems more comfortable with perpetual pessimism than honest national progress. They rarely, if ever, acknowledge reforms or positive steps taken by the current administration. Instead of engaging constructively, they choose selective blindness—ignoring policies, initiatives, and difficult but necessary decisions aimed at stabilizing the country.
President Tinubu’s courage to take politically risky reforms, his determination to confront long-standing insecurity, and his willingness to make tough calls in the interest of long-term national recovery are met not with fair critique but with outright silence or dismissal. To the ADC, nothing is ever improving, nothing is ever commendable, and no effort is ever worthy of recognition.
Their politics thrives on doom-saying. Every development is framed as failure, every reform as disaster, and every challenge as proof that Nigeria is beyond repair. Rather than offering alternative ideas, practical solutions, or balanced criticism, they recycle negativity as a strategy. In doing so, they project an image of a party more invested in seeing Nigeria struggle—so they can say “we told you so”—than in seeing the nation succeed.
Such an approach does not inspire hope, unity, or progress. It reflects a mindset that feeds on despair, not patriotism, and opposition for its own sake, not for the good of Nigeria.
Let it also be stated plainly: Peter Obi joining the ADC will make absolutely no difference whatsoever. Nigerians are not fools. They know who the ADC people are—career political failures that have moved from party to party, election to election, without ideas, integrity, or credibility. Slapping Peter Obi’s name on their decayed structure will not suddenly give them relevance. You cannot perfume political rot and expect the stench to disappear.
This is also the time to tell Peter Obi the hard truth his supporters are too emotional to say: he should not contest the 2027 presidential election. Nigerian politics is not Twitter politics. It is about power balance, structure, and regional agreement. The North will never allow another southerner to take over immediately after Tinubu’s four years, because that would mean potentially eight uninterrupted years of southern presidency. That door is firmly shut.
Running in 2027 under these realities will not make Peter Obi a hero; it will make him a political instrument for confused coalitions and desperate politicians looking for cover. It will only weaken the opposition further and make victory easier for those who actually understand the political terrain. Wisdom is knowing when the battle is unwinnable—and walking away before your political capital is wasted on an already dead arrangement.
The ADC appears to have no real political structure or strategy for a few clear, interconnected reasons:
It was not built as a grassroots party
ADC was never patiently constructed from the ward–local government–state level upward. Strong parties in Nigeria grow structures over time: loyal ward executives, polling-unit agents, youth and women wings, funding pipelines, and dispute-resolution mechanisms. ADC skipped this hard work and instead operates like a meeting point for elite politicians, not a mass party.
It is personality-driven, not institution-driven
Rather than ideas and ideology, ADC revolves around who is angry with the ruling party at any given time. When a party depends on personalities instead of institutions, it collapses once those personalities lose relevance or disagree among themselves. That is why ADC keeps looking for a “saviour” instead of producing leaders internally.
No clear ideology or policy direction
ADC does not stand for anything concrete—no consistent economic philosophy, no social agenda, no governance blueprint. Without ideology, you cannot design a strategy. All that remains is reactionary politics: attacking whoever is in power and hoping public anger does the rest.
Electoral opportunism instead of long-term planning
Serious parties plan the election cycle years. ADC wakes up close to elections and starts shopping for popular candidates instead of grooming them. Begging Peter Obi to join them late in the game exposes the absence of succession planning and political foresight.
Internal contradictions and credibility problems
Many of its loudest voices once supported policies and leaders they now condemn. That inconsistency makes it impossible to sell a coherent message to Nigerians. Strategy requires trust; ADC lacks it—even among its own members.
No discipline or command structureA functional party has hierarchy and discipline. ADC members speak anyhow, attack one another, and contradict party positions publicly. Without internal order, external strategy is impossible.
Power-seeking, not nation-building
At its core, ADC behaves like a coalition of politicians desperate to remain relevant, not a movement committed to solving Nigeria’s problems. When power is the goal, but vision is absent, structure and strategy become afterthoughts.
ADC has no political structure or strategy because it was never designed to be a serious political institution. It is a convenient platform for frustrated politicians, held together by negativity, bitterness and ambition—not by ideas, discipline, or grassroots strength.
• Allison Abanum writes from Orogun, Ibadan, Oyo State.
