By our reporter
After countless all-night and day meetings, several press conferences and exclusive interviews, loads of behind-the-scene planning, arguments, counter-arguments, prayer vigils, and lots more, finally the coalition seeking to deprive President Bola Tinubu a second term has matched words with concrete action.
The opposition titans have despatched to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) a letter and relevant documents applying for registration of a new political party to be known as All Democratic Alliance (ADA).
ADA, with a slogan of Justice for All, will be the special purpose vehicle on which the coalition seeks to climb to power in the 2027 general elections.
The acronym ADA is bound to elicit different emotions among Nigerians. For instance, in Igbo language, it means first daughter of a family.
The coalition is spearheaded by political heavyweights such as former Vice President and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential flagbearer in the 2023 polls, Atiku Abubakar, fondly called Atiku; former two-term governor of Kaduna State and estranged political ally of President Tinubu, Malam Nasir El-Rufai; former Transport Minister, Rotimi Amaechi; Convener of the League of Northern Democrats and former presidential aide, Umar Ardo, and an assortment of politicians who quit the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as well as from opposition parties.
It is not clear if another national heavyweight and Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in 2023, Peter Obi, is among them, but sources told People&Politics that Obi may not be totally connected to the ADA progenitors because he had made it clear to them in several previous meetings that if the bid to remove Tinubu is not to uplift the dire socio-economic situation of the ordinary Nigerian, especially the youth who form about 65% of voters, and is merely for power grab, then he will not be part of such group.
Dated June 19,2025, the coalition’s application has been duly acknowledged by INEC.
As against previous projections and plans by the group to coalesce, initially, into the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and later, the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the latest move by the coalition shows their intention to run under a mint umbrella.
It remains to be seen if INEC will register and thus validate the new political party even as the electoral umpire insisted recently that it would follow strict, laid down constitutional and electoral guidelines in treating matters, irrespective of mounting pressure by any section of the public.
The main feature of ADA’s logo is a corn (maize) cob which the promoters of the party interpreted as meaning abundance, fruitfulness, resilience which the party plans for Nigerians, should it win in 2027.
Recall that El-Rufai had posted an interview on X where he confidently stated that the coalition will upstage Tinubu in 2027 because Nigerians are hurt and impoverished in an unprecedented manner by the president’s harsh socio-economic policies and alleged general lack of governance capacity.
The ADA application letter was jointly signed by the association’s interim National Chairman, Chief Akin A. Rickets, and interim National Secretary, Abdullahi Elayo.
It read, in part: “We respectfully write to the Independent National Electoral Commission, requesting the registration of our association, the All Democratic Alliance, as a political party.
“This is a sequel to the decision taken by the Nigerian National Coalition Group to sponsor our association for full registration.
“The name of the party shall be All Democratic Alliance with ADA as our acronym and ‘Justice for All’ as our slogan.”
Submitted to INEC also were other pieces of information pertaining to ADA’s constitution, manifesto, logo, and minutes of its preliminary meetings.
The group added: “We have further attached our manifesto encompassing details of our party ideology and our constitution providing the legal framework that defines our identity, structures, and organisation.”
