A former National Vice-Chairman, North-west of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and member of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Salihu Lukman, has warned the opposition coalition against godfatherism at all levels.

In a statement on Tuesday titled ADC and the Prospect of Internal Democracy, Lukman expressed worry that coalition godfathers might emerge in the ADC and begin to impose their candidates at all levels.

He cautioned the party’s leaders that Nigerians would not be deceived by any cosmetic design when presenting another party which duplicates their old parties.

He said, “The struggle to ensure that loyalists of leaders emerged as the leaders of the reformed ADC to some extent disregard the consideration for intellectual capacity, integrity, performance track records, name recognition across all demographics, respect in community and political circles, independent mindedness and general acceptability to all or majority of stakeholders, which we agreed to.

“We must caution our leaders, Nigerians will not be deceived by any cosmetic design of presenting another party, which is only a duplicated our old parties.

“With the way things are going, coalition leaders will emerge as godfathers, and the next thing is that they will impose their surrogates at all levels as leaders of the ADC.”

While acknowledging Senator David Mark’s leadership, which enabled the party to seal the agreement that produced the result of the emergence of new leadership of ADC, Lukman said, “The truth is that the negative side of almost all our opposition political leaders is already at play. Many are taking steps to manipulate the process of leadership reformation of the ADC. Loyalists are being promoted in a manner that suggest perhaps the 2027 elections is already won.

“This will naturally be followed by anointing preferred candidates for 2027 elections. Therefore, the first test of Senator Mark’s leadership of the party is the extent to which he can mitigate all these and ensure that ADC is not a party that will be controlled by godfathers.”

Lukman emphasised that Nigerians anxiously await initiatives of the Mark leadership as the issue of the direction the party intends to take towards addressing the challenges facing the country.