*Says Nigeria suffers while ruling party goes into campaign mode 2 years earlier
By Folorunso Alagbede , Abuja
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has berated the ruling All Progressives Congress for what it called a “non-stop victory parade” in favour of President Bola Tinubu, accusing the party of breaching electoral law and mocking citizens’ hardship with premature re-election campaigns and rallies.
The ADC said this in a statement issued on Wednesday by its Spokesperson, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi in Abuja.
The party said that the choreographed endorsements rolling out from Abuja to Kano and the President’s campaign billboards lining the streets of Abuja, flout the Independent National Electoral Commission’s reminder that campaign activity is illegal until 150 days before the 2027 polls.
The ADC argued that while the APC is “hoisting billboards instead of fixing the nation’s broken economy,” inflation has soared, the naira has collapsed, petrol prices have multiplied, and kidnapping has morphed into an industry.
The coalition party described the development as an evidence of a government distracted from its duty to govern.
The ADC warned that every unlawful rally is a billboard of failure and pledged to challenge the ruling party “when the window opens, at the ballot box.”
The statement by the ADC reads, “For several months, APC organs have staged rallies and erected billboards endorsing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for a second term.
“From the Abuja national caucus that proclaimed him (Tinubu) “sole candidate,” to choreographed declarations in Port Harcourt, Minna, Kano, and Akure.
“These theatrics brazenly ignore the Electoral Act and the fresh warning issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission, which reminds every politician that public campaigning is illegal until one hundred and fifty days before polling day.
“While the ruling party chants “four more years” and sings songs of a sinking mandate, prices have galloped beyond the reach of ordinary citizens.
“Headline inflation, already twenty-two percent in 2023, rocketed to a thirty-year high of almost thirty-five percent last December and still hovers above twenty-two percent today, meaning food, transport, and rent now cost roughly sixty percent more than they did at the time he took office.
“The naira has crumbled from about N461 to the dollar in early 2023 to well over N1,500, wiping out savings and strangling small enterprises. Petrol that once sold for N185 per litre before subsidy removal now averages more than N1,000, turning every journey to work or market into an exercise in anguish.
“Debt is devouring the treasury. The World Bank projects that servicing our obligations already swallows more than our total federal revenue, leaving scarcely a kobo for schools, clinics, or roads.
‘”Revenue mobilisation limps along at barely eleven percent of our Goss Domestic Product, far below the continental average, yet the government borrows again and again and again.
“When it comes to insecurity, in communities across the nation, security has deteriorated into a national nightmare. Between April and June this year, 122 security personnel consisting of NSCDC, Police and Soldiers have been killed; 1865 civilians have been killed, and over 3132 security-related killings have been reported across the nation. Only last Friday, more than 50 people were seized in a major case of mass abduction in Sabon Gari Dirmi, north of Zamfara State.
“Nigerians are being abducted at an industrial scale while President Tinubu chases after adoption for second term. Instead of security personnel, our streets are lined with the President’s campaign Billboards
“In the power sector, the national grid collapsed a dozen times last year and several times this year, exposing the hollowness of President Tinubu and the APC’s promises of reliable power. “Corruption indices still rank Nigeria in the bottom quarter of the world and press-freedom scores have fallen ten places in a single year, as independent journalists face mounting pressure.
Under the APC, Nigerians are hungry, sick and scared, but instead of finding real solutions to these problems as they promised to do, the government has been busy building an army of digital propagandists and illusion creators.
“The ADC therefore demands that the APC dismantles its unlawful campaign machinery, respect the law it swore to uphold, and focus on rescuing Nigerians from grinding inflation, a battered naira, rampant insecurity, and collapsing public services.
“Until the lawful campaign window opens, every political billboard is a billboard of illegality and should be removed as they are campaign materials.
“The ADC will continue to hold the government accountable in the public square, and, when the time comes, at the ballot box”, the party said.
