The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has accused the Presidency of entering a “panic mood” following the rising influence of the newly formed opposition coalition.
The party claims the government’s recent policy announcements are politically motivated and not driven by concern for Nigerians.
In a statement released Sunday in Abuja, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC’s Interim National Publicity Secretary, said the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration was reacting to the coalition’s momentum, not to the country’s pressing challenges.
According to Abdullahi, the sudden reformist stance of the government especially regarding food security, is a result of mounting political pressure, not genuine compassion.
Responding to a tweet by Bayo Onanuga, President Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, who recently announced the government’s plan to remove bottlenecks hindering food availability and exports, the ADC spokesperson said:
“On Saturday, when Bayo Onanuga tweeted before the world that, moving forward, all bottlenecks hindering ‘the realization of the Tinubu administration’s potential’ would be removed to enable food sovereignty and export, he didn’t just issue a statement, he issued a confession.”
Abdullahi went on to say:
“A confession that this government had, by design, been sitting on its hands while Nigerians starved. Now, under mounting political pressure, they want applause for doing the bare minimum? This is not reform. This is not leadership. This is a scramble for survival by an administration that has been cornered by its own failures.”
The ADC claimed that, without the pressure created by the unveiling of the opposition coalition, the government would have continued its “calculated indifference” to the suffering of the Nigerian people.
“Let us make one thing clear, it took the emergence of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the growing momentum of a united opposition to push this government into action.”
“It wasn’t the hunger of hundreds of millions of Nigerians that moved them, it was fear. Fear of the 2027 elections. Fear that Nigerians have woken up. Fear that, with a united opposition, 2027 will be a clear-cut election between the APC and the Nigerian people.”
Abdullahi also accused the government of deliberately weaponizing poverty, saying:
“After Bayo Onanuga’s statement that they would no longer delay in removing bottlenecks that had hindered food security, the only conclusion possible from that statement is that the government had deliberately sat on its hands and watched Nigerians starve in the last two years.”
He questioned the timing and motive behind the government’s proposed reforms:
“We must all begin to ask this government the obvious questions: If the bottlenecks that Onanuga alluded to in his press statement could have been removed earlier, why did they keep them in place while millions went hungry and businesses collapsed? Was it so they could stage a last-minute, propaganda-driven performance closer to the 2027 elections?”
Calling the move part of a calculated strategy, he said:
“This is a pattern. This is a strategy. This is not a government reacting to an urgent national crisis, it is a political machine managing optics. Every move they have made has been about political calculation ahead of 2027. Nigerians, shine your eyes.”
He further alleged that President Tinubu has already begun his re-election campaign, two years early, due to increasing public dissatisfaction.
“President Tinubu is already campaigning, two years early, because he knows he’s in trouble. He knows Nigerians have had enough. And the worst part?”
“He is risking the country’s future, all in the name of his re-election bid. Onanuga’s declaration is not about food security or economic diplomacy, this is about politics and 2027.”
