Convener of The Alternative, Segun Sowunmi, has criticised the coalition efforts around the African Democratic Congress (ADC), arguing that the model successfully used by President Bola Tinubu and former President Muhammadu Buhari cannot be casually replicated.
Speaking on TVC’s Breakfast programme on Thursday, Sowunmi said the political alliance that produced the All Progressives Congress (APC) was built on years of ideological stability and hard work qualities he says are missing in the current ADC-led coalition drive.
“First of all, you must concede that the playbook of a coalition political party belongs to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Muhammadu Buhari in that bloc. I don’t mean them as individuals, but within their bloc. They brought stability of ideological situations to the table,” Sowunmi said.
He noted that Tinubu and Buhari succeeded because of their long-standing political identities Tinubu with the AD and AC tradition and Buhari rooted in the ANPP allowing them to unite under a shared political vision.
“The challenge with these people now is that those who want to do coalition are a cheap, fake set of humans who do not understand that you have to rewrite the book,” Sowunmi added. “You can’t run on the playbook of Bola Tinubu and Buhari, which they invented, and think you’re going to beat them at a game they invented.”
Sowunmi emphasised that coalition-building requires intensive grassroots work and political sacrifice, pointing out that Tinubu and Buhari failed in 2011 and only succeeded later after abandoning their former parties and persuading others to join a new platform.
Using the ADC as an example, he criticised attempts to seize party control from the top without respecting constitutional processes, which he said inevitably leads to internal crises.
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