The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has clarified the absence of its presidential candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, from Monday’s G-100 opposition summit held at the Shehu Musa Yar’adua Centre in Abuja.
Speaking during an appearance on Arise Television’s Day Break program on Tuesday, the ADC National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, stated that the summit was primarily organized to foster inter-party dialogue rather than serve as a forum for individual presidential candidates.
‘The summit-the way we understand it, the summit is more about conversation between political parties, rather than conversation among candidates,’ Abdullahi said. ‘It’s more about exploring cooperation opportunities among political parties. So, it’s not consequential that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was not present.’
Addressing concerns over representation, Abdullahi emphasized that the ADC was fully represented at the talks, noting that he attended the event alongside four of the party’s national vice chairmen.
‘I was there, the party was highly represented-we had like four Vice Chairmen there at the G100 Summit. So, ADC was fully represented, and we participated in the process,’ he added.
The G-100 summit convened delegates from six opposition political parties aimed at building a unified framework to challenge the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2027 general elections.
While the gathering featured presidential candidates such as Donald Duke of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Adewole Adebayo of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and Moses Adebisi of the Democratic Leadership Alliance (DLA), several high-profile figures were notably absent.
Atiku, Peter Obi of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), and Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), did not attend the summit.
Abdullahi clarified that while the ADC remains open to opposition collaboration, its strategy to contest the 2027 presidential election does not depend on producing a single consensus candidate.
‘We in the African Democratic Congress, we are happy to have this conversation, but everything we are doing is not dependent on whether we are able to produce a single presidential candidate,’ Abdullahi stated. ‘We are saying that on our own, as the ADC, we can defeat President Bola Tinubu in 2027. But if we are able to negotiate this cooperation, then it makes the job easier.’