By Samuel Ogidan
ABUJA – The African Democratic Con-gress (ADC) has criticised Pres-ident Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration for its sudden reform push.
The ADC said that the gov-ernment’s sudden reform push is not borne of compassion or policy, but of political panic, panic sparked by the growing influence and credibility of the party.
ADC, in a statement by its Interim National Publicity Sec-retary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, said that its sudden rise exposed Tinubu’s panic, adding that the government sudden reform drive is rooted in fear and not leader-ship.
Challenging the recent dis-closure by Mr. Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, that government plans to remove bottlenecks to food security and export, the ADC wondered why it has taken the emergence of the coalition to make the Tinubu government start thinking of how to make food available to Nigerian people.
The party noted that without the pressure mounted on the government with the successful unveiling of the opposition coa-lition last week, the government would have persisted on its calcu-lated indifference to the plight of the Nigerian people.
ADC said: “On Saturday, when Bayo Onanuga tweeted before the world that, moving forward, all bottlenecks hinder-ing ‘the realisation of the Tinubu administration’s potential’ would be removed to enable food sover-eignty and export, he didn’t just issue a statement, he issued a confession.
“A confession that this govern-ment had, by design, been sitting on its hands while Nigerians starved. Now, under mounting political pressure, they want applause for doing the bare min-imum? This is not reform. This is not leadership. This is a scramble for survival by an administration that has been cornered by its own failures.
“Let us make one thing clear, it took the emergence of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the growing mo-mentum of a united opposition to push this government into action. It wasn’t the hunger of hundreds of millions of Nige-rians that moved them, it was fear. Fear of the 2027 elections. Fear that Nigerians have woken up. Fear that, with a united op-position, 2027 will be a clear-cut election between the APC and the Nigerian people.
“Make no mistake, the APC has been deliberately weaponis-ing poverty. After Bayo Onanuga’s statement that they would no lon-ger delay in removing bottlenecks that had hindered food security, the only conclusion possible from that statement is that the govern-ment had deliberately sat on its hands and watched Nigerians starve in the last two years.
“We must all begin to ask this government the obvious ques-tions: If the bottlenecks that Ona-nuga alluded to in his press state-ment could have been removed earlier, why did they keep them in place while millions went hungry and businesses collapsed? Was it so they could stage a last-minute, propaganda-driven performance closer to the 2027 elections?
“This is a pattern. This is a strategy. This is not a government reacting to an urgent national crisis, it is a political machine managing optics. Every move they have made has been about political calculation ahead of 2027. Nigerians, shine your eyes.
“The president is not govern-ing. He is campaigning, two years early, because he knows he’s in trouble. He knows Nigerians have had enough. And the worst part? He is risking the country’s future, all in the name of his re-election bid. Onanuga’s declaration is not about food security or economic diplomacy this is about politics and 2027.
“The ADC calls on all Nige-rians, do not be swayed by cho-reographed press releases and sudden awakenings. This is not governance. This is desperation.”