ADC Coalition Drive Can’t Copy Tinubu-Buhari Model – Sowunmi

The convener of The Alternative, Segun Sowunmi, has criticised the coalition drive around the African Democratic Congress, saying the template for a successful political alliance in Nigeria belongs to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and former President Muhammadu Buhari and cannot be casually replicated.

Speaking on TVC’s Breakfast programme on Thursday, Sowunmi said the political alliance that produced the All Progressives Congress was built on years of ideological stability and painstaking groundwork—qualities he argued are missing in the current ADC-led coalition effort.

Sowunmi said, “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 explained that Tinubu and Buhari were able to work together because of their long-standing political identities and consistency.

“To that extent, when they wanted to do a coalition, they could imagine themselves to be from the same material, only joining together political numbers,” he added, noting Tinubu’s roots in the AD/AC tradition and Buhari’s long association with the ANPP.

The former PDP spokesman faulted current coalition advocates, particularly within the ADC, accusing them of attempting to copy a model they neither understand nor helped to build.

“The challenge with these people now is that those who want to do a coalition are a cheap, fake set of humans who do not understand that you have to rewrite the book.

“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,” he said.

Sowunmi maintained that coalition-building demands intense grassroots engagement and political sacrifice, stressing that the Tinubu-Buhari alliance did not happen overnight.

According to him, both leaders failed to form a coalition in 2011 and only succeeded later after abandoning their former parties and persuading other politicians to join a new platform.

He said, “If you watch the people calling coalition now, they don’t want to do the heavy lifting. The hard work of coalition building is going back to the parties at the base.”

Using the ADC as an example, Sowunmi argued that the party’s leadership crisis stemmed from attempts to seize control from the top without following constitutional processes.

“They hopped onto a party that had existed for some time and tried to grab it at the top, without looking at the constitutional requirements,” he said, adding that the approach had inevitably plunged the party into internal crisis.