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BREAKING: INEC can’t stop us – ADC *Vows to go ahead with congresses
The African Democratic Congress (ADC), on Thursday, vowed to go ahead with its national congresses and convention scheduled for this month, regardless the de-recognition of the leadership of the David Mark leadership that has been conducting its affairs since last year.
Bolaji Abdullahi, its spokesman, said the party had before now notified the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that its congresses would commence on April 9, saying there was no question of backing down.
A guest of The Morning Show, a breakfast programme on ARISE NEWS Television, the ADC spokesman, made the declaration against the backdrop of the commission’s decision to de-recognise the Mark leadership.
INEC, in a statement, on Wednesday, signed by Mohammed Kudu, Commissioner, Information and Voter Education, had explained that based on the review of the decision of the Court of Appeal judgment on March 12 this year regarding the case, brought by Rafiu Bala Gombe, claiming to be the authentic leader, it had decided not to deal with either side of the factions.
The appellate court had ordered the party to maintain the status quo ante belum pending the decision of the Federal High Court, a decision the commission interpreted as not having any further dealings with the two parties, leading to the removal of the names of David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola as National Chairman and Secretary, respectively from its portal.
But Abdullahi, told his host on Thursday that the commission deliberately misinterpreted the appellate court’s order as a way of achieving a pre-determined goal of ensuring that President Bola Tinubu had no challenger in the 2027 election.
Maintaining the earlier position of the party that Gombe had resigned as an executive of the party in May last year, he said he had no locus to take the party to court and therefore could not be regarded as a faction.
He said: “The most important point today is that all this is part of an orchestration of the ruling party to distabilise the opposition. And it is very clear. Why is all these escalating few days after receiving Rabiu Kwankwaso in our party. We all know what is going on.
“We don’t have an internal problem. The problem we have is the problem orchestrated by the ruling party. The issue is that today, INEC has been bamboozled, INEC has been intimidated, INEC has succumbed to intimidation and they are determined to coronate President Bola Tinubu.
“As at today, we don’t trust INEC. INEC has shown that it is biased and that it is partisan and we’re going to respond appropriately. They said they’re not going to monitor or our congresses.
“One thing we are forgetting is that Ekiti election is coming, Osun election is coming. By derecognising the ADC, you are rendering it impossible to participate in those elections.
“INEC brought a timeline. It’s difficult to meet. We’ve served them a 21-day notice that our congresses start on April 9th. Now, by truncating the leadership of the ADC, they’re also disrupting the process.
“So, you can see where all this is going. If those processes are not completed, we’ll not be in a position to go to election in 2027. That’s why I say it’s a coronation process that they’re planning. When we keep saying that there is a plan to make President Bola Tinubu the only candidate on the ballot in 2027, people think we’re being hysteric. They think we are just bandying conspiracy theories.
“All this points to INEC trying to create a chaos. Now, asking people to go and vote is difficult enough. Now asking every single person that has a voter’s card to go to their polling units to revalidate those cards few months to the election is plain anarchy.
“It is sounding uncomfortably familiar. It is only that the democratic contest is what is making it look strange. If we are in a military rule, we can understand it. But we have found ourselves in a situation where everything is being done to ensure that the election in 2027 is a fair accompli and that Nigerians will be left with no option or no choice. But we have seen how this ended in the past.
“So, we’re saying, we’ll go ahead with our congresses. We had given INEC the notice, they had accepted the notice. So, whether they come or not, we’ll continue with our congresses, we’ll continue with our convention.”
Maintaining that INEC had no basis to toe the line it had decided, he argued that Nafiu Gombe, was being sponsored to disrupt the process, tracing the various developments that rendered his claim to the leadership of the party a non-issue.
His words: “Let me answer the fundamental question that as at the time the coalition was joining the ADC, Nafiu Gombe, was an official of the ADC. The answer is no! He resigned his position, May 17 as one of the six Deputy Chairmen, and INEC was duly notified.
“On August 12, 2025, INEC received a notice. So, INEC knows that as at May, 2025, Nafiu Gombe was no longer an official of the African Democratic Congress. But that is a different matter.
“But the most important point is that the Court of Appeal made a ruling and the summary of the consequential part of the ruling is that status quo ante belum be maintained. Now, this is the crux of the matter. Nafiu Gombe’s lawyers are interpreting it to mean the state of things before he went to court on September 2nd.
“But this is not the correct representation of what happened. On July 29th ADC had a NEC meeting in Abuja, attended by INEC. And in that NEC meeting, one of the resolutions was dissolution the National Working Committee. It was on the basis of that that INEC recognised David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola and uploaded it on its website.
“Now if the Court of Appeal is say go back to the status quo, Nafiu Gombe went to court on September 2nd. This NEC meeting happened on 29th of July and he went to court on second of September, INEC is now saying, our recognition of David Mark came on the 9th of September. That’s after he had gone to court.
“But that is an administrative issue. Whether you recognised it in 2026 or 2025 does not matter. The action was taken on July 29th and concluded. INEC knew about it and it was on that basis that INEC acted.
“To say that status quo ante belum was on the 9th of September is dubious and it is contrary to what the Court of Appeal ruled. Now let us even assume that we go back to the status quo before even David Mark, at the time NEC took the decision, ADC had leadership. So, if we must go further back, it means that Ralph Nwosu is the Chairman of ADC.
“So, the court would not have envisaged a situation where ADC, according to INEC did not have a leadership. What INEC has done effectively is to violate the directives of the appeal court. And that is criminal. INEC today is behaving like a criminal organisation.
I will always refer to the encounter I once had with Kenneth Idiodi. He was then the leader of the Rosicrucian Society in Nigeria, otherwise known as Amok. It was a sit-down at Zodiac Hotel Enugu. Then, I was the reporter of The Guardian in the Coal City.
You know the Amok faith bases its philosophy or belief on the law of Retributive Justice – the law of Karma. That is to say, everything you do in life has its rewards or punishment in equal measure – much like the measure you give, the measure you receive.
I don’t know how much this society draws or links this belief from or with the Bible, but I do recall Jesus Christ warning Simon Peter – return your sword to the scabbard – for he who kills by the sword, dies by the sword.
As a child growing up I listened to one of the epics of Oriental Brothers with the lyrics – ogbu mma ga-esi n’mma na, ogba egbe ga-esi n’egbe na ooo! Translated – he who kills by the sword will die by the sword, he who kills by the gun will die by the nozzle of the gun.
Now, here is where this is relevant in present Nigerian reality – the reason I’m putting details of that encounter out publicly once again, having done so previously.
During that encounter, Idiodi used one event in Nigeria to illustrate his point. He told me of a Nigerian leader who commanded the troop that carried out the Asaba massacre in the heat of the Nigerian civil war – an episode, said to have claimed over 2,000 able-bodied men who had come out to welcome the Nigerian soldiers with songs and dances only to fall in the hail of bullets that descended on them like rainstorms – was not spared by fate.
That commander was to meet his own death in a hail of bullets even as a Head of State. He never mentioned the name of the military top brass. But I used my tongue to count my teeth to come to the answer. You could also do same – use your tongue.
Now, how does this relate? You may have followed the outing of General Yakubu Gowon at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre, Abuja, where he presented his autobiography titled: My Life of Duty and Allegiance, that contained what seemed his memoir on the Nigerian civil war, which he prosecuted as Head of State.
I’m sure you must have been observing the debate therefrom that event. Now, I’m not so much enamoured of the debate as I’m of the nuances surrounding that unfortunate episode and the role of Gowon in it, given my takeaway from that Idiodi encounter some two decades ago.
Does Gowon, now a nonagenarian really believe that presenting a pious, if not saintly account of himself to the world as snippets of his book, which I picked up here and there suggests, truly suffices for the atrocities of that period?
Take the Asaba massacre for example. Was that the handiwork of Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Biafran leader, whom the former Head of State seems to blame for everything that went wrong. Was he also the one that commanded that mass slaughtering of innocent men?
Under your nose as Head of State, you watched citizens slaughtered mercilessly like infested herds in the streets – you watched young girls corralled into leprosy colonies and wantonly raped before being wasted – you watched as train coaches bearing people fleeing the scene were stopped and their human cargoes thrown alive into River Benue like rotten goods for fishes to feast on – you watched all these and didn’t lift a finger.
Then as Head of State, you not only supervised but watched millions of children with distended stomachs, tiny feet, glazy eyes, heavy heads on ropelike necks, practically begging for death to come quickly and save them from further punishment.
You supervised and watched the cataclysmic eruptions from the blitzkrieg on churches, markets and hospitals – all to keep Nigeria together. In your mind the brutal and merciless butchery of innocent people who were not soldiers and had nothing to do with the war could be explained away just like that?
O! It was Ojukwu that caused it. Ojukwu was the one who released the bombs, caused the blockades that led to the kwashiorkor that killed millions or other atrocities thereof? What a pity!
Now, I return to Idiodi. How else could anyone interpret today’s Nigeria without introducing the law of retributive justice that the Amok leader spoke of? How do you fault the link of the commander who massacred over 2,000 souls dying by the barrel of the same gun, even as Head of State?
How could anyone fail to relate what is happening to our Gowon today with the past? This is a Geneal that wakes up to see hundreds of his brothers and sisters being buried in mass graves as was done during the onslaught he supervised against another people and he still thinks it has nothing to do with him?
Now, the story you told at that event in Abuja on Tuesday, is not new. You simply repeated yourself. My interpretation of that event is that you’re a man undergoing daily torture. You wouldn’t be a human being otherwise, given what is before you, which didn’t start today.
You’re probably trying to escape your fate by appealing to public sympathy. How helpful could that be in the face of the clear evidence of your culpability in the deliberate wasting of more than three million souls? Nobody would believe you.
Yes! They could humour you. But that’s the best anyone could do for you. I hear money rained like a fountain and that you left the scene with billions of naira in your kitty. At 90? Haba General!
Now, here is the thing General. None of these would help.
None would work. You have tried prayers. But you forget that the prayer of sinner is an abomination and a reproach before God, unless he repents. You have also written the book. Surely, this too would end up in the trashcan of history – meaningless piece of conjectures, propaganda, half-truths and outright lies – perhaps!
But, why don’t you try the one thing you have been running away from, for more than five decades – go on your knees in total supplication and surrender, repentance and penance – then rise, call all Nigerians and empty yourself with the truth.
Thereafter openly apologise to the millions of souls whose tormenting wailing you probably hear every day during your disturbed sleep and in your quiet moments, but choose to suppress with these baby tales. Ask them for forgiveness, genuinely and see. There may lie the answer you seek.
Try that and see if it wouldn’t be a more efficacious cure for this decades-old wound than this Ojukwu-bashing and those wasted prayer sessions. You might not only have atoned for the past, but saved the future. May God guide you.
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice
“Now that the court has ruled against it, we are sure that, in the coming days, we will witness a mass exodus from the ruling party,” were the words with which the African Democratic Congress (ADC) welcomed Wednesday’s ruling of the Federal High Court, Abuja reversing the deadline for party primaries, among others.
Bolaji Abdullahi, spokesman, who conveyed the party’s excitement over the development, said it viewed the ruling as vindication of its objections to key aspects of the electoral body’s guidelines at the time they were issued.
Recalling its specific objections to the strict timelines on membership registration as well as the conduct of party primaries, the statement, said: “The decision of the court on these issues, including those that directly contradict the constitution, is therefore a welcome vindication of our position.”
Stressing that the ruling, which removed the impediment placed by the guidelines on politicians who wished to seek alternative platforms to contest elections, was a positive development that would promote freedom of association, the statement, added: “We believed at the time that that particular restriction was designed to prevent people from leaving the ruling party, APC.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Cuba on Thursday that the United States was laser-focused on changing the communist system, after the island was stunned by a US indictment of its former president Raul Castro.
The US military announced that the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and its escort warships had entered the Caribbean, although President Donald Trump, asked if the deployment was meant to intimidate Cuba, said, “No, not at all.”
Rubio, a Cuban American and vociferous opponent of Havana’s government, described the island 90 miles (145 kilometres) from the US shore as a “failed state” as it suffers a major economic crisis.
“Their economic system doesn’t work. It’s broken, and you can’t fix it with the current political system that’s in place. What they’ve gotten used to all these years is just buying time and waiting us out.
“They’re not going to be able to wait us out or buy time. We’re very serious. We’re very focused. The US preference is always a diplomatic solution, but President Donald Trump has other options at his disposal.”
Stating that Cuba had tentatively accepted an offer by the United States of $100 million in aid in return for reforms, he said it was unclear if the United States would accept Cuba’s terms, as Washington insists on circumventing the military-backed conglomerate GAESA, which dominates the island’s economy.
Rubio said Thursday that the GAESA chief’s Florida-based sister, Adys Lastres Morera, had been arrested and was being held by US immigration authorities, adding in an X post: “Managing real estate assets…while also aiding Havana’s communist regime, until I terminated her permanent resident status.”
The charges against Raul Castro — younger brother of Fidel Castro, the late iconic US nemesis who led Cuba’s communist revolution that culminated in 1959 — stem from the deadly downing of two civilian planes manned by anti-Castro pilots in 1996.
Cuban authorities called on citizens to protest the “despicable” indictment, with the official newspaper Granma urging Cubans to gather outside the US embassy in Havana on Friday at 7:30 am (1230 GMT).
“This isn’t really an accusation, something from more than 30 years ago, but rather a public attack on a public figure,” Fabian Fernandez, a 30-year-old accountant, told AFP in Havana.
Trump in January seized on a US domestic indictment of Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro to send in US forces to depose him and take him into custody.
“The idea is to say, we can do to you what we did to Nicolas Maduro,” said Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House.
The Maduro operation led to the end of free oil from Venezuela to Cuba, which relied on its ally for nearly half its needs.
Cubans have suffered power outages of up to 20 hours a day and taps running dry.
Runaway inflation has caused the price of basic goods to soar and mountains of trash have piled up on the streets of Havana.
In addition to murder, Castro has been charged with conspiracy to kill Americans and destruction of aircraft.
The Cuban government called the 1996 shootdown was “legitimate self-defense” against an airspace violation.
China and Russia both criticized Trump’s steps on Cuba, which come as he tries to end an unpopular war he started with Israel against Iran.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a press briefing that Washington “should stop brandishing the sanctions stick and the judicial stick against Cuba and stop threatening force at every turn.”
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We believe that under no circumstances should such methods — which border on violence — be used against either former or current heads of state.
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