Eniola Yekini
The fate of the Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, ahead of the 2027 general election appears to be hanging following the recent submissions by the factional Chairman of the party in Anambra State, Patrick Obianyo, that he is not the party’s candidate.
Obianyo further contended that, based on the judgments of the High and Appeal Courts, which ruled that the caretaker executive of the party led by David Mark has no powers to conduct Congresses and Conventions, but the elected state Chairmen of the party do, he cannot lay claim to the Presidential ticket of the ADC.
“At this very moment, we have a kind of factions in the party, and as far as I am concerned, Atiku is not my candidate, and I say it because Atiku incidentally is David Mark’s candidate, and I am not a Chairman under David Mark”
“We are legacy Chairmen, and David Mark came in as caretaker Chairman, and that is what they are still up to today, and they came in and said that we should leave the party, and we said no! ”
“We went to Court, and we won, and they went to the Appeal Court, and we won because the Court said that we are the authentic Chairmen of the party and that David Mark is a caretaker Chairman and that he has no right to conduct Congresses and Conventions, and those judgements are subsisting ”
“So going by the two Court Judgements the Congress and Conventions as well as the primary elections conducted under David Mark are nullity hence the primary elections that produced Atiku as Presidential candidate is a nullity and the Independent National Electoral Commission( INEC )was joined in the matter but they chose to be neutral and I pity those who have been parading themselves as candidates of the party because they are wasting their time ” he said.
Obianyo further stated that the Independent National Electoral Commission( INEC) is yet to publish the lists of candidates of the party adding that of the Commission wishes to publish the name of Atiku Abunbakar as candidate and they shall wait until the final judgement of the Supreme Court adding that by law they would be given a window to upload the lists of their candidates from state House of Assembly to that of the Presidency.
He also recalled why the Presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress ( NDC), Mr Peter Obi, left the party, saying that Obi knew that the party would not nominate him as candidate.
“Peter Obi would have been in a better position to say why he left the party, but being an insider in the party, he was outside the party and was negotiating that he should be given the ticket of the party
“At some point he was given the concession to nominate a National executive member of the party, and he chose Chinedu Idigo as the National Organising Secretary of the party, but he was somehow sceptical about being a member of the party”
Obianyo recalled, “At some point he felt perhaps that may be at the National level Atiku appears to be better favoured as the Presidential candidate of the party because the National Secretarate of the party was donated by Atiku and David Mark at one of our meetings said that he was reluctant to to accept that office and he called all of them including Peter Obi and they all said that he should take the office that was donated by Atiku and so Peter Obi felt that Atiku has taken over the party structures ”
“Even at some point, David Mark said that he is warning them that you cannot be outside the party and be negotiating tickets, adding that he is only allowing two persons to complete their Governorship tenure, and if they don’t want to join the party officially, they should stop talking about the party ”
“Maybe Peter Obi did not play his roles in the party very well or that the party was favourably disposed to Atiku than him”, he said.
On the position of the founder of the party, Chief Okey Nwosu, Obiano explained that he went on the negotiations without members of the National Executive Committee of the party and some few members of the National Working Committees of the party.
“When these people came, they were told that there was nobody in the party and that they should take over the party, and that is the problem of the party today “, he stated.