A chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Dele Momodu, has said that opposition leaders, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai, and former Anambra State governor Peter Obi, have successfully outmaneuvered President Bola Tinubu’s government with their political strategies ahead of the 2027 general elections.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Friday, Momodu claimed that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was rattled by the emergence of a united opposition front and was working to ensure Tinubu becomes a consensus candidate in 2027.

According to him, government agents have been attempting to destabilize opposition parties by sponsoring factions in the Labour Party (LP), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).

“The ruling party does not want any strong competition in 2027 in particular. They are not too bothered about the governors and the rest of them, but they want a sole candidate. If possible, all political parties would rise up and endorse one man, and that is the president and commander in chief,” Momodu said.

He noted that ADC conveners anticipated such moves and deliberately tightened the party’s structures to resist infiltration. He also revealed that the opposition deliberately misled the ruling party into believing they were aligning with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) or another emerging platform before unveiling the ADC.

“You could see they were doing abracadabra over time, people thought they were going to SDP when El-Rufai declared for SDP. Everybody said, oh, it’s clear the coalition will go into SDP. Then suddenly, ADC came. It was a surprise,” he explained.

Momodu commended the resilience of ADC leaders, describing them as “many steps ahead” of attempts to frustrate their coalition. He warned that efforts to undermine democracy by using institutions like INEC and the judiciary would fail if Nigerians remained vigilant.

“It’s a shame that a civilian government would not want democracy to prosper. Many people died for this democracy. We never expected the day when a few people would want to hijack it for their own use. My appeal to the judiciary is simple: do not fall for coercion or temptation. Nigeria’s future depends on it,” he added.

The ADC, recently adopted as a coalition platform by opposition leaders, is expected to play a key role in challenging Tinubu’s re-election bid in 2027.