2027: ADC in last stage battle after emerging leading opposition in Senate 

The African Democratic Congress, ADC, penultimate week, emerged as the main minority party in the National Assembly.

DAILY POST reports that this came as nine senators switched allegiance from other parties to the ADC, while the PDP, previously the main opposition party, saw its number of senators decrease.

It could be recalled that the PDP had 36 senators at the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly in June 2023.

Following the development, APC now has 87 senators, ADC has 9, PDP has 6, Accord has 1, APGA has 1, NDC has 1, and NNPP has 1.

Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, will hold fresh elections to fill the three vacant seats of Nasarawa North, Enugu North, and Rivers South East, which became vacant due to the passing away of the respective Senators.

In their defection letters to the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, the lawmakers explained that they moved because of problems within their political parties mostly due to disagreements over leadership, and a wish to improve democracy.

Also, almost at the same time, 12 members of the House of Representatives announced that they are leaving their political parties to join different parties. This also showed new changes in the political scene of the Green Chamber.

Among those who defected from the LP to the ADC are Victor Afam Ogene, representing Ogbaru Federal Constituency of Anambra State; Peter Aniekwe, representing Anambra East/West Federal Constituency; and Lilian Orogbu, representing Awka North/Awka South Federal Constituency of Anambra State. Others who switched from the LP to the ADC are Jesse Okey-Joe Onuakalusi, who represents the Oshodi/Isolo I Federal Constituency in Lagos State, and Murphy Omoruyi, who represents the Ego/Ikboba/Okha Federal Constituency in Edo State.

Also joining the ADC is Peter Uzokwe, representing the Nnewi North/South/Ekwusigo areas in Anambra State, who left the Young Progressives Party, YPP. Similarly, six lawmakers withdrew from the PDP: Zakaria Dauda Nyampa, representing the Michika/Madagali Federal Constituency of Adamawa State; Midala Balami, representing the Askira/Uba–Hawul Federal Constituency of Borno State; and Mohammed Bargaja, representing the Isa/Sabo-Birni of Sokoto State.

Others who joined the APC are James Shaibu Barka, who is representing the Gombi/Hong Federal Constituency in Adamawa State; Bitrus Kwamoti Laori, who is representing the Demsa/Numan/Lamurde Federal Constituency in Adamawa State; and Kobis Thimnu, who is representing the Guyuk/Shelleng Federal Constituency in Adamawa State.

Meanwhile, the PDP still leads as the opposition in the House of Representatives even though many of its members have joined the ruling party, APC, and the Coalition party, ADC.

The APC now has around 268 members in the House of Representatives.

The ADC, which previously only had one member, Joseph Leke Abejide, now has seven members. At the inauguration on the 23rd of June, 2023, the APC had approximately 181 members, while the opposition parties had 179 members, with the PDP having around 115 members.

By the end of plenary session on Thursday, March 12, 2025, the PDP lost six more members, which reduced the party’s members in the House to 49.

The Labour Party, which lost some members to the ADC, now has 14 members left in the House. The NNPP also has 14 members left in the House. This means that in both chambers of the National Assembly, the PDP lost 107 members to the APC, Accord, and the ADC.

However, the APC increased its number of senators from 59 during inauguration on June 10, 2023, to 84.

The Labour Party, which started with eight senators, currently has none, while the New Nigeria People’s Party now has one senator, down from two at the start of the assembly.

Also, the Social Democratic Party, which once had two senators, now has none, while the All Progressives Grand Alliance still has one seat.

Speaking to DAILY POST, Dr. Adetokunbo Pearse, public affairs analyst, Convener Reset Lagos PDP, member PDP National Presidential Campaign Council in 2023 and member Board of Governors, Peoples Democratic Institute, PDI, dismissed the ADC as a non-political party, insisting that former vice president, Atiku Abubakar and many other big politicians who claimed to have joined the party are not even card-carrying members yet as the party’s state chairmen have rejected their membership.

He said, “The government that is in place now has shown that the tactics they want to use to continue to be in office is to blackmail or undermine any opposition.

“Everybody who is in office now, governors and members of the National Assembly, were elected in 2023. Now their decision to leave the PDP does not have any bearing on the party, because when we go to election, these people, if they were still in the PDP, had to run for primaries to be re-elected and we don’t know whether they would win the primaries.

“So that they are leaving now does not reflect the strength of the party. It only reflects the strength of the party in the National Assembly, which, by the way, was never really a challenge to the APC government, because this is a rubber stamp National Assembly.

“They’ve never done anything. This is a National Assembly, whether it’s APC or PDP, they have all been compromised to the point where they even say forgery is no longer a crime, and they refuse to pass something that all Nigerians want, which is electronic transfer of election results.

“So this is a National Assembly that has failed everybody, whether they are PDP, NNPP, APC or PDP, they are all the same in this national assembly because Akpabio, the Senate president and the President have compromised everything.

“They give these people all sorts of benefits, so they do whatever they want them to do. So it doesn’t matter whether they are PDP senators or whether they are APC leaving their party.

“Don’t forget also that most of these members of the National Assembly were put in there by their governors. So when the governor said they are leaving, they are all leaving. And why are the governors leaving?

“Look at the reasons why the governors are leaving. The first one that left was Ifeanyi Okowa and his governor in Delta State. Why did they leave the PDP? Because Okowa was alleged to have embezzled 1.3 trillion Naira of Delta State money himself and his governor.

“So in order for them not to go to jail, APC offered them refuge. Come to APC and all your sins are forgiven. So this is the APC government you have.

“Now, what I understand is that they are afraid that the way Wike and the presidency and the INEC are going, the PDP will not be able to field candidates.

“So they are leaving PDP, not because they want to leave PDP, but because they feel that PDP has been undermined to the point where they will not be able to field candidates.

“It’s a big mistake going to the ADC, because PDP has only one more hurdle, and that is the Supreme Court. And we are very hopeful that the Supreme Court will validate our national convention of 15th, 16th, November, 2025, in Ibadan.

“The reason we are hopeful, don’t forget that there is a precedent, whereby SDP submitted the list of its leaders to INEC and INEC rejected it. But when the matter got to the Supreme Court, it ordered INEC to recognize it because it is an internal affair.

“We are waiting when we go to the Supreme Court, as we have done, we are waiting for them to rule on it, that we will be vindicated.

“Now, ADC has serious problems. ADC is not even a political party yet. What did the court say last week about the national chairman of ADC? He was ruled out. You know why? Because they were not elected at the national convention.

“All members of the PDP National Working Committee, our national chairman, national secretary, and so on and so forth, are duly elected at a bonafide National Convention in Ibadan.

“Now, whether that convention is going to be upheld or not, is where we are. But we’ve had our convention. There is nobody who can say Turaki is not the chairman of PDP. You see the difference between the PDP and ADC?

“Do you know that till today, Atiku Abubakar cannot claim to be a card-carrying member of ADC? Because nobody in ADC has given them the party card. About 20 of the 36 state chairmen of ADC have rejected all these new people coming to the party. They’ve rejected them.

“INEC is also saying that ADC has not been submitting its annual budget. ADC currently has no official because they have not had a National Convention, which the PDP has.

“The PDP is the only bonafide party in Nigeria. Not even APC can boast of the kind of national convention we had. So when they talk about ADC…it is just what APC has done to try to disqualify everybody.

“And of all the parties that are still standing, the PDP is number one. What is ADC? I mean, look at it yourself, ADC doesn’t even exist. Another thing that INEC said about ADC is that ADC has not been taking part in national elections.

“Where have you seen ADC? This last election we had in Abuja, at least PDP came second in all the local government areas. Did you see ADC there? So why are you people talking about ADC? Because big names have gone to ADC. All the big names that have gone to ADC, they are not even members of ADC.

“You notice how quiet Aregbesola has become lately, it’s because he has seen that this party does not exist. Please don’t compare PDP to ADC.”

Also speaking to DAILY POST, the Deputy National Publicity Secretary, of the Coalition Nigerian Political Parties, CNPP, Comrade James Ezema, said the PDP is undergoing a kind of metamorphosis, adding that it could easily lose its place as the main opposition party to the ADC if the coalition overcomes its own internal crisis.

“You remember that PDP was actually having this notion of becoming a dominant party for 60 years when suddenly the party’s dominance ended, it could not hold its house together.

“Meanwhile, the APC, they have mastered the act of opposition politics, and then they now use divide and rule against the PDP. But it became more pronounced when the current President came in, he now uses the FCT minister as a tool to balkanize the party.

“And then I also feel that the FCT Minister has his own ambition. He wants to have control of the party. So he wants to build a party that he can control and then become the godfather of the party, just like the current president is the godfather in APC.

“So he wants to have a national leadership position too like the president, so that at the end of it, he may be gunning for something.

“ADC now has more number of senators in the Senate even though the APC cartel in the National Assembly are actually trying to see how they can minimize the number of people going to the ADC because you remember how they acted when Abaribe announced his intention to join the ADC.

“They now took the position of becoming the court and the INEC to be deciding whether there’s a division in the party [APGA) or not.

“It is not the duty of the National Assembly to decide whether a member who wants to defect has a genuine reason or the other. It is the duty of the court, not the duty of the President of the Senate, nor the leader of the Senate.

“It is the court that can decide this person had no reason to defect, but when they play politics because he did not defect to APC, that’s why they are now talking about whether there’s division in APGA or not, and are now talking about issues that are not backed by the Constitution.

“If the ADC succeeds in not allowing the current crisis that is now erupting within the party, if they succeed in not allowing it to divide the party, they will become a strong opposition party.

“If indeed the courts play the role they’re supposed to play, as true interpreters of the law and not based on influence and coercion by the ruling party, then ADC would be positioned as the main opposition party in Nigeria.

“But I am seriously afraid, because what is happening in the PDP and ADC right now is like what the FCT minister said one time that within the PDP that those who did not accept to abide by some of their own camps, they will put fire in their states.

“So it’s like once the new political party is trying to become a dominant opposition party, the fire will be put in that party.

“The PDP has been balkanized and then, the other chunk of the faction that may survive the process, will be the one that is loyal to the FCT minister.

“So at the end of it, we are going to have a PDP that may not produce a presidential candidate in 2027 or if they were to present a candidate at all, they could present a candidate that will not be of any serious reckoning.

“So politics is like a game, so everybody plays it. If they survive this process, fine, if they don’t survive it, we will now see that we’ll just have one party dominance without any serious opposition at all, because, as it is now, there’s no other political party right now that can stand as an opposition in 2027 except the ADC. And if the ADC is balkanized again, that’s it.

“Just like you remember what happened to SDP. The moment SDP was being envisaged as the coalition party, what they did was immediately, they created a crisis within the party and the thing ended up destroying the party.

“But the opening of ADC and the successful transition of the leadership from the old leadership to the new leadership is something that surprised everybody, and I hope that the current leadership will be able to overcome the ongoing crisis and then be able to emerge as the strong opposition party, which we need.

“In fact, even the APC itself, if they are really serious, they know that they should need an opposition party to make them perform.

“Because if you don’t have anybody that is challenging you, you go into the comfort zone.”

2027: ADC in last stage battle after emerging leading opposition in Senate