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By Myke Agunwa, Abuja
The African Democratic Congress (ADC), has condemned the tweet made by an aide of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Bayo Onanuga, which alleged that the opposition is planning to overthrow the Tinubu government before 2027.
Onanuga had in a series of tweets earlier in his X handle stated, “President Tinubu is not doing well, he is not governing Nigeria well, so claim the desperation opposition. But the data are showing that they are wrong and blind”.
But the mega coalition said that it considers the tweet reckless and malicious, adding that it is a lot more than that.” If anything, it potentially lays the grounds for systematic clampdown on opposition leaders”.
In a statement issued Wednesday, just one week after the formal unveiling of the national opposition coalition in Abuja, the ADC, through its spokesperson Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, warned that such reckless and unsubstantiated claim signals a broader campaign of intimidation and repression against political opposition leaders by the Tinubu administration.
The statement added that “The APC-led federal government appears to be constructing a false narrative that is designed to justify a potential clampdown on dissent and to criminalize legitimate opposition activity under the guise of national security.
“The ADC is not interested in truncating democracy; we are solely committed to saving the nation from the irredeemable incompetence of this government. And the only means available to us is the democratic means. We are not soldiers, we are politicians. We don’t have bullets; we only have the ballots. When the time comes, we will only present our solutions and an alternative vision of the future to the Nigerian people and leave them to make their choice.
The party wondered why the APC government is so jittery that it is so eager to betray its own heritage. “APC is the first opposition party to come to power in Nigeria. It is therefore a great wonder that the same party now appears to find it strange that there is an opposition at all”.
It called on Tinubu to promptly caution his aides from further baseless but dangerous allegations that has the potential to heat up the system ahead of the next election. It cautioned that the manner of crying wolf where there is none does not make the president look good and only betrays its sense of panic.
We also call on the Nigerian people to be vigilant and discerning and to reject the underhand tactics being deployed to delegitimise the opposition and silence alternative voices. The health of our democracy depends on a free, open, and competitive political environment.
The party called on the international community, democratic governments all over the world, international observers, and human rights organizations to closely monitor the unfolding political environment in Nigeria. It called on them to hold the Tinubu administration accountable for any actions that undermine democratic freedoms or violate the political rights of Nigerian citizens.
It added that ADC remains committed to building a better Nigeria through peace, participation, and the power of the peopl