Ex-ADC chair: Opposition coalition not targeted at Tinubu — we’re against bad governance

Ralph Nwosu, immediate past national chairman of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), says the opposition coalition formed ahead of the 2027 general election is not targeted at President Bola Tinubu.

Nwosu said the political alignment ahead of the 2027 elections is against the “worsening culture of bad governance” under the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Speaking during an interview on Arise Television on Sunday, Nwosu said the new coalition adopted the ADC as its political platform to offer Nigerians an alternative to the current administration, which he said has presided over a period of despair, hunger and economic stagnation.

“The coalition is not only targeted at Tinubu. Tinubu as a person — we don’t have any problem with him, but with the administration of the country,” he said.

“The way APC has gone so far, no Nigerian, not just the people in politics, no Nigerian is happy.”

He said the growing hardship across the country and the disconnect between citizens and those in power had become too severe to ignore.

“I did a survey from the church to the motor park to the airport to the bukas where I eat. Everybody — you can see it — despair, hunger,” he said.

“The people in government are living fat, building mansions and vacationing in all parts of the world, and spending money like never before,” he said.

Nwosu criticised the APC-led government for operating what he described as a “palliative economy”, in which government relief packages fail to address systemic poverty, while political elites live in opulence.

He also raised concerns about the government’s infrastructure priorities, citing the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway project, which has drawn criticism over its cost and feasibility.

“We are spending N15 trillion — now revalued to over N20 trillion — on a road that cannot be completed or used in under 20 years. What kind of government is that?” he asked.

The former ADC chair noted that the coalition was formed out of the need to reclaim the promise of democracy, and not to advance personal ambitions.

“The coalition is organic. It’s not about me. It’s not about people contesting for one thing or another. It’s about Nigerians. This is not the democracy our heroes fought for,” he said.

He argued that respected political leaders of Nigeria’s past would have lent their support to the coalition if they were alive today.

“If Abiola was alive today, he would join the coalition. If Shehu Musa Yar’Adua was alive today, he would join the coalition,” he said.

Nwosu’s remarks came days after Phrank Shaibu, special assistant on public communication to Atiku Abubakar, the former vice-president, predicted that the APC would lose the 2027 presidential election due to widespread economic hardship.

“No amount of propaganda can cover hunger. No PR can spin poverty,” Shaibu said in a statement, describing the Tinubu administration as disconnected from the lived realities of Nigerians.