In response to the recent formation of a new opposition coalition under the African Democratic Congress (ADC), chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Farouk Aliyu, has dismissed the alliance as a congregation of individuals driven by personal grievances rather than national interest.
Speaking in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Monday, Aliyu stated, “I don’t speak on behalf of the presidency, and I don’t agree with what the presidency said, that these guys are posing a threat to democracy. I don’t think so. Whether they are a threat to us, no, they are not. Certainly they are not. We respect them.
“What is the difference between them and us in terms of what they have to offer? The difference is mostly a group of persons who are aggrieved, personally aggrieved, because if you look at each and every one of them, they were part of us.”
He noted that many of those in the coalition were once part of the same political alliance that worked together to unseat former President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP in 2015.
“They are Nigerians like us, most of them, virtually all of them, were part of us. I mean, we are part of the same team that we came together to dethrone PDP when Jonathan was the president. They are just part of us that have left. But I think the whole country should look at them.”
According to Aliyu, the motivations behind the coalition are not rooted in ideology or a clear development agenda but in personal discontent.
He further argued that the political circumstances today are significantly different from those of 2014, when opposition forces united under a common purpose and a figure like Muhammadu Buhari to effect real change.
He queried, “What didn’t they say about PDP? What didn’t they say about all other parties except the APC? Now it’s a matter of personal fulfillment. They are happy that they are not part of the government, and so they feel they should go and coalesce. And this coalescence of people against APC or the president, it will not go to work. It’s not going to work, honestly.
“There’s a lot of difference between 2014 and this time around. If you look at them in the whole of the team they have, you don’t have anybody like Buharu of that time, of 2014, when the whole country came together to bring about change. And I’m sure Nigerians will keep asking, who are these guys? Were they not the same people who were abusing everybody all over the place for Tinubu and for APC?So it’s about the elite fight, and I think Nigerians should understand and see them for who they are. It’s just about what they want to get personally. Simple. That’s it.”
Melissa Enoch
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