* Accuses govt of utilizing safety businesses towards opposition, alleges rising assaults on events, requires worldwide scrutiny
*Gana, Turaki-led PDP warning on reminisce of 1983, say nation is boiling
Chuks Okocha in Abuja
African Democratic Congress Presidential Campaign Council (ADC-PCC) has declared that President Bola Tinubu would lose the 2027 presidential election, insisting that intimidation, violence, and manipulation of democratic establishments can’t stop his exit from workplace.
The council additionally accused the ruling APC of manipulating the judiciary and deploying safety businesses towards opposition events in a determined bid to retain energy.
Director of Media and Publicity of ADC-PCC, Kola Ologbondiyan, made the assertions in Abuja, warning that the rising assaults on opposition members and supporters throughout the nation pose a critical risk to Nigeria’s democracy.
Ologbondiyan cited the killing of a number of members of Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) in Delta State, allegedly following an assault on the celebration’s marketing campaign venue by suspected APC thugs.
He mentioned the incident was a part of a disturbing sample of violence towards opposition events, significantly members of ADC, NDC, and Allied Peoples Movement (APM), in Kaduna, Kogi, Katsina, Kebbi and Sokoto states.
Describing the incidents as an assault on democratic freedoms, the ADC-PCC spokesman mentioned, “This is not politics. This is state-sponsored terror against democracy.”
The council raised considerations over the preparedness and neutrality of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), alleging that the fee’s voter register database has been compromised and APC sympathisers have been deployed to delicate positions inside the electoral physique.
It additionally alleged that safety businesses had been getting used to harass, arrest, and intimidate opposition members throughout the nation.
Ologbondiyan expressed explicit concern over the alleged involvement of a serving director of a safety company within the APC Presidential Campaign Council as co-Director of National Security and Intelligence, describing the event as a violation of the regulation establishing the company.
According to him, the alleged use of state establishments towards political opponents replicate a authorities extra excited by retaining energy than submitting itself to a reputable electoral contest.
“One thing is now very clear to all Nigerians: Tinubu is not preparing for an election. He is preparing for a coronation,” Ologbondiyan mentioned.
ADC-PCC maintained that the alleged manipulation of judicial processes and electoral establishments wouldn’t assure Tinubu’s re-election, warning that Nigerians would resist any try and impose a president via what it described as compromised judicial selections or electoral fraud.
It known as on Nigerians to stay vigilant and put together to defend their votes, democratic rights, and constitutional freedoms forward of the 2027 common election.
The council additionally urged the worldwide neighborhood, civil society organisations, spiritual leaders, and conventional establishments to pay nearer consideration to what it described because the deteriorating political and safety atmosphere within the nation.
It warned that silence within the face of political violence might embolden these undermining democratic establishments.
ADC-PCC equally appealed to safety businesses to stay politically impartial, stressing that their allegiance must be to the structure and the Nigerian folks, slightly than any political celebration or particular person.
“Those who allow themselves to be used as tools of oppression today will answer for their actions tomorrow,”Ologbondiyan warned.
The council insisted that the 2027 presidential election should be allowed to replicate the real will of Nigerians, declaring that no quantity of intimidation, violence or institutional manipulation would cease the voters from deciding the nation’s political future.
Jerry Gana, Turaki-led PDP Caution on Reminisce of 1983, Say Country is Boiling
National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Taminu Turak,i and former Minister of Information, Professor Jerry Gana, alerted the nation to the hazard of pressure inside the political system, stating that political actors must be cautious of the implications of the 1983 political episode.
Addressing a press convention on the rising political tensions and violence, Turaki mentioned, ”Just a little memory of our political historical past will assist us recall the upcoming hazard lurking on the street that the present ruling APC management is forcing the nation to journey.
He said, ”In the First Republic, ‘Operation Wetie’ was the inevitable results of the asphyxiation of the opposition and the ruling celebration’s engineered disaster within the opposition political events. The disaster continued unabated, and ultimately that republic caved in.
“In the Second Republic, the governing celebration, refusing to study from its predecessor and smarting from its hair’s-breadth survival via the judiciary within the 12 2/3 debacle, went all out to decimate the opposition.
”It deployed orthodox and unorthodox strategies to realize what it christened a ‘moonslide victory’, utilizing the ability of coercion to enthrone leaders in opposition strongholds. The judiciary was complicit, giving judgements that didn’t replicate the truth on the polls. Eventually, that republic collapsed.”
Turaki mentioned, ”We have taken the difficulty of convoking this press convention, and of drawing on our historical past as a reference level, as a result of we imagine within the veracity of the postulation of the Spanish-American thinker, George Santayana, that, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’
“Today, the governing party, the All Progressives Congress, and the presidency, led by a pseudo-democrat, are speeding down the infamous lane that leads to democratic destruction: the lanes of constriction of the political space, violence against the opposition, the ‘buying’ and co-optation of opposition leaders, and the judicialisation of politics.”
According to the PDP chairman, ”History, each native and international, has proven that these lanes result in just one vacation spot: the loss of life of democracy and the delivery of full authoritarian rule, which subjugates the folks and destroys the nation.
”The apparent query, then, is, is that this what the Tinubu-led administration desires? In the whole political historical past of our nation, by no means have Nigerians been extra unsure of the processes, establishments and common character of the forthcoming elections.
“This can be gleaned from Yiaga Africa’s third National Voting Intentions Survey (NVIS 3.0), released on 7 October 2026. While 84 per cent of Nigerians say they are likely or very likely to vote, 61 per cent say fear of violence could keep them away from the polls.”
Turaki defined, ”Only 34 per cent are assured that INEC will conduct credible elections, down from 45 per cent within the two earlier rounds, whereas a staggering 63 per cent have little or no confidence that the judiciary will resolve electoral disputes pretty, rising to 81 per cent within the South-south.
”The outcomes are damning in all essential respects.”
APC-PCC mentioned such research must trigger the federal government to prioritise decreasing pressure and constructing confidence in voters, particularly contemplating that lower than 28 per cent of registered voters turned out on the final presidential election.
Ologbondiyan said, ”Viewed via an goal lens, the president gained with lower than 40 per cent of the votes forged by that lower than 28 per cent: about 8.8 million votes out of 93.4 million registered voters. That is an excellent minority, and a mandate resting on so skinny a base carries a critical legitimacy deficit.
“If turnout was that low in 2023, without the anomalies we are witnessing today, we can only imagine how much worse the coming elections will fare.”
