…Accuses One-Party Plot By Ruling Party
The African Democratic Congress Presidential Campaign Council (ADC-PCC) has described the inauguration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council in Abuja as a “rape of democracy”, accusing the ruling party of plotting to impose a one-party dictatorship on Nigeria.
The ADC-PCC Director of Media and Publicity, Kola Ologbondiyan, made the allegation on Wednesday, claiming that the APC was undermining multiparty democracy by allegedly pressuring opposition governors to align with the ruling party or join its presidential campaign council.
“What we are witnessing is not politics but political abduction. You cannot claim to be a democrat while using state power to force opposition governors into your party and then drafting them into your campaign council. This is political banditry,” he said.
Ologbondiyan further alleged that the APC was using national institutions, security agencies and the judiciary to weaken opposition parties and concentrate political power in the hands of one individual.
He urged Nigerians to resist what he described as an immoral political order driven by the ruling party’s determination to retain power despite worsening economic hardship, hunger and insecurity.
“These particular sets of leaders don’t care about the current conditions of the people but how best to remain in power at a time when average Nigerians find it difficult to eat and be secure,” he said.
The ADC-PCC spokesman also accused the government of suppressing dissent, harassing opposition figures and weakening democratic institutions for partisan interests.
“Never in our democratic journey have we witnessed this level of intolerance and desperation. The APC government has weaponised poverty, hunger and insecurity to subjugate Nigerians and cripple the opposition,” Ologbondiyan said.
He added that the situation was a departure from the democratic ideals for which the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola and other pro-democracy activists sacrificed their lives.
Ologbondiyan urged Nigerians, media organisations, civil society groups and the international community to oppose what he described as the APC’s anti-democratic agenda and defend the country’s multiparty system.
He also presented the ADC presidential ticket of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and former Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi as the alternative to the current political order.
Describing Atiku as a committed democrat with national reach and political experience, Ologbondiyan said the former vice-president had the capacity to reunite the country and restore confidence in democratic institutions.
“Atiku Abubakar is a democrat to the core. He has the national spread, the capacity and the will to reunite Nigeria and restore our battered democracy, which the APC has destroyed,” he said.
“The fate of Nigeria’s democracy rests on him to save it from total collapse,” Ologbondiyan added.
