Kola Ologbondiyan is a former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this interview, he speaks on the crisis rocking the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the significance of the recent protest organised by the leadership of the party, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU reports

How far do you think the protest organised by the African Democratic Congress (ADC) can go in resolving the crisis in the party?

What ADC did with the protest is to rise in defence of our democracy. This democracy started in 1999, precisely, and we have come this far to 2026. So, what we should be expecting is a growth, not a decapitation. But unfortunately, what is happening now, which personally I had warned against, is a shift towards one-party state instead of a multi-party democracy. For ADC, this is absolutely unacceptable.

And as you know, the issue about the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, the issue about justice system, the issue about forcing divisions within parties, just because the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its future candidate, President Bola Tinubu, do not want a viable opposition in the 2027 election.

And I don’t want anyone to talk to me about the fact that the president has come out and said it’s not his duty to make sure that there’s no crisis in the rival political parties. That is begging the question. We know what is happening with our opposition parties. We can understand, we can see what is happening, we can see the hands.

What’s happening in the opposition parties?

This supposed crisis has been sponsored in the other political parties. Like I always tell people, membership of party politics is not designed for saints. So, you definitely find people who anyone can use to create crisis.

And that is the situation in which the opposition parties have found themselves. So, what the ADC did, led by its leaders, was to say to the Nigerian president, his handlers, and those who are encouraging divisions in the opposition political parties that there will definitely be a day of reckoning.

The spokesperson of the APC said that ADC is shooting itself on the leg. And that ADC took ADC to court. Is that what it is?

What he has said is just simply laughable. You know why I say so? For instance, let’s take the situation in ADC. There are people who went to court and the former presidential candidate of the party went to court.

It is common knowledge, it is trite knowledge, that a presidential candidate does not own a political party. When the former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, left the Peoples Democratic Party, he didn’t think the PDP are numb. He walked away.

And there are cases like that. There’s a member of the House of Representatives who, as we speak has been assured of a ticket in APC, but is standing in ADC and is in court, knowing fully well that he will not run an election on the platform of the ADC. In a matter of time, Nigerians will see the truth of what I just said concerning that member of the House of Representatives.

There are cases like that you can point to. And what do you make of people who ordinarily have their own personal challenges, but who today live in hotels or live a life that is larger than what they ordinarily do. We can see that but ADC is not bothered. It is not at all. It believes in pushing its own agenda. And having written to INEC, given 21-day notice, and saying that we’ll start our congresses, and INEC having acknowledged that, how do you now go and do the magic?

David Mark is calling for the INEC chairman to resign, accusing him of deliberately misinterpreting an order of Court of Appeal. Is it not too late in the day to ask Prof. Joash Amupitan to resign?

It’s not too late. You have been given an assignment that requires you to be an impartial arbiter at any point in time, and that is what honesty demands. At any point in time, when you have challenges in implementing your role as an impartial judge, you take the exit door.

That’s what is expected of people that have integrity. So, if you have been given a role as an impartial arbiter, and you discover that you can’t run it because it’s been compromised, or there’s a form of pressure on you that will compromise your integrity, it is better to take your exit.

ADC bigwigs and Kabiru Turaki-led faction of the PDP are witnessing a coming together like what we had that formed the APC. What was the point of this meeting?

The meeting was essentially a solidarity visit to the ADC in the face of the challenges that they have with INEC and in the face of the protests that happened in Abuja.

They felt that there’s a need for them to come and solidarize, so to say, with an opposition political party who is facing challenges that they had faced, and to encourage the opposition political party and other opposition political parties who are having similar challenges across the political space that they should have courage.

So, you’re saying there’s nothing like a realignment or alliance?

I cannot specifically speak to that now, because what I can speak to is the fact of the solidarity visit, which is everywhere, and everybody can see it, it’s on the social media, it’s everywhere already, it’s in the news. I can speak to that aspect. What will come after that solidarity, I can’t speak to it yet.

So, what next after this protest?

Well, maybe, if I have permission to say this, I can clearly tell you that like I’ve said before, what is ahead is heavier than what we are seeing. Let’s continue now, let them continue that trajectory, and let Nigerians continue their own thing.

Are you aware that there is another ADC group led by Dumebi Kachikwu, that says it is holding a convention soon?

Well, you can’t blame INEC for it because even INEC in this matter was in support of ADC, and I’m sure you will have seen the affidavit which INEC swore to, endorsing the activities of ADC transfer of power from Ralph Nwosu to the David Mark leadership. So, those ones got no issue.

I believe that you are also aware that Dumebi’s matter was dismissed in the Federal High Court, though I heard that he is proceeding to the Court of Appeal. So, if you go to court, you had a case.

And this is what I speak to you about integrity always. If you had a case, you went to court, court judged it in one way or the other, accept the judgment. What we are having in the ADC irrespective of this last matter is the fact that there’s no injunctive restraint on the party in respect of its congresses or convention.

There was nothing like that in the decision of the Court of Appeal. I’m not a lawyer, but at least I understand English. Everything was written in English, I should be able to read and understand this. Having said that, if there was no injunctive restraint against the ADC, why would it not continue its activities? So, it will continue its activities.

And like I pointed out earlier, if those other people that you call faction, because it’s always starnge to me, when you say Nafiu Bala has a faction.

Bala is protesting because he claimed to have been removed as a deputy national chairman or something. Then another group came and said that Bala was never elected as deputy national chairman. So, it is clear that there’s only one ADC under the leadership of Senator David Mark and that is the only party that people are referring to.

That’s why people like Governor Seyi Makinde, Kabiru Turaki, former Senate President Adolphus Wabara, and a former governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu, came to pay solidarity to the ADC under the leadership of Senator Mark. The question is: Why didn’t they go to Nafiu Bala’s house?

Tinubu is the president of the nation. What has he got to do with what ADC is experiencing?

If you saw the way the protest happened organically,you will agree with me that the Nigerian spirit says never die. And it is clear knowledge that nobody in our history has been able to put Nigeria in the side pockets.

I don’t know whether it caught security agencies off guard because the security agents, including ordinary Nigerians, our wives all go to the same market and we all buy fuel in the gas stations. We knew in 2023, when President Tinubu was elected, that a litre of fuel was N200 or less.

Today, we are buying a litre of fuel for N1,370 and you have a president who doesn’t care. Do you think that the people on the street, ordinary Nigerians are happy? These are the challenges that are confronting us as a people. So, the people need a platform of expression, and for as much as the ruling government and its party try to block that freedom to associate, they’ll run into issues.

When you check the timetable for the elections; with what is happening, don’t you think that time is running out on ADC?

We still survive within that time. You know they are game people, so they think that they want to play games with our party. What do I mean by that? They say don’t do congresses; you must go and sit down and wait for the judgment. What the Electoral Act says is that once we notify INEC, we can go ahead and conduct our activities. There’s no injunctive order in the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

So, the party resolved that it is going ahead with its congresses and the national convention. And the party is working to ensure that it doesn’t have conflict in its electioneering process. The morbid fear of these people in government is that they don’t even want a fly to stand in election against the president. And we are saying the country belongs to all of us. We are a multi-party system people.

That has been the tradition, political tradition of our nation and nobody will come against it. The people before now who tried it, they didn’t succeed. We had a case of who the cap fits in this same country, five political parties donating their presidential tickets to an individual.

It’s in history. We have a situation where we had third term in this country and in the National Assembly, it was stopped. We had a transition by a military government that wanted to exceed beyond its time. It was stopped. So, there is no individual, no matter how powerful he is, who can put a country of 200 million persons in his side pockets.