Datti Baba-Ahmed Says ADC Lacks Political Heavyweights, Warns Party May Collapse After Primaries

A former vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Datti Baba-Ahmed, has criticised the African Democratic Congress (ADC), saying the party lacks politicians of the calibre of late former President Muhammadu Buhari or President Bola Tinubu, whom he described as resourceful, focused, and determined master politicians.

Baba-Ahmed argued that the ADC is unlikely to survive internal party primaries, predicting that the party would collapse once the outcome of its primary elections fails to favour some of its leading figures.

Speaking on Channels Television on Friday, Baba-Ahmed said many of the politicians currently in the ADC are the same individuals who helped build the All Progressives Congress (APC), which he accused of misruling Nigeria. According to him, these politicians defected to the ADC after failing to secure positions or political appointments within the APC.

“Some of them went as far as Senate screening and are now taking it back, using the Nigerian people to fight the APC,” he said. “I am not that gullible. I can trace their political journeys from the beginning to where they are today, and my conclusions are negative.”

Baba-Ahmed also criticised the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), highlighting what he described as deep structural defects within the party. He argued that Nigerians would not allow themselves to be deceived again by the same political actors.

“They are deluding themselves into thinking Nigerians will agree to be deceived twice—first by bringing in the APC, and now by removing the ‘P’ and adding a ‘D,’ while presenting the same people,” he said.

According to him, the ADC lacks a unifying figure capable of commanding loyalty across party lines. “They don’t have a Buhari in the ADC—someone runners-up would rally behind. They also don’t have a Tinubu, a resourceful, focused, and determined master politician. I am not praising him; he has his own hidden agenda. But they don’t have such a figure in the ADC,” Baba-Ahmed stated.

He further noted that the political circumstances that led to the APC’s rise in 2015 no longer exist. “At that time, there was a subsisting promise following the election of President Jonathan. That promise no longer exists. Today, there is no compelling promise. Everything that made that coalition possible is absent,” he said.

Baba-Ahmed concluded that Nigerians are being asked once again to support a political coalition made up of the same individuals responsible for the current state of the country, saying, “The same people who brought in the APC, which Nigeria now deeply regrets, are asking Nigerians to come and vote for the ADC.”