The National Chairman of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Senator David Mark, has heaped the blame for the current challenges facing Nigeria on the government of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
According to him, Nigerians are already aware of who is responsible for their problems, and are only interested in who can save them from the troubles.
He stated that Nigerians are suffering more than any other country of the world at the moment, adding that things have gotten worse under the APC government.
Naijaonpoint reports that Senator Mark made the submission on Monday during the inauguration of the ADC Policy and Manifesto Committee of the party.
In his address, the former Senate President charged the committee to go beneath the surface, think outside of the box, and ask hard questions about why things are not working in the country.
The ADC National Chairman pointed out that Nigeria is not short of ideas, but many of its sound policies have been turned into mere academic exercises.
He therefore charged the ADC committee to ensure all its recommendations are practicable and present honest and workable solutions that the party can implement for Nigerians.
Below is the full statement.
1. Today is an important day not because we are inaugurating another committee but because of the responsibility this inauguration places on us as a political party on a rescue mission and as citizens of a country in distress.
2. Across the country, families are working harder and earning lesser and lesser, food prices rise faster than wages, salaries, and incomes can cope. Power supply remains epileptic even as tariffs increase astronomically. Strangely, the APC government continue to aggravate the citizens’ tax burdens. Insecurity continues to disrupt people’s social and economic life.
3. Nigerians are suffering today, perhaps more than any other time in our history. Poverty stares us in the face. Yes, poverty and hardship have always existed, but the hardship and poverty that Nigerians are experiencing under the APC administration have gotten worse.
This situation has been brought about and compounded by government needlessly vicious policies. What Nigerians are therefore desperately looking for are credible alternative ideas, actions and policies. They want policies that would improve their lives today and lay a solid foundation on which they can improve their future. They want policies that show compassion.
4. Nigerians are not looking for clever arguments. They want policies and actions that show that government understands what they are going through and is prepared to act with clarity, courage and most importantly with compassion.
5. This is what the African Democratic Congress represents, a party that puts the people first. Nigerians are not looking for who to blame for their suffering, they already know who is responsible for that. They are looking for who will ease the pains. They want real, practical solutions that address the challenges of today, not policies that expect them to continue to give and give and give.
6. One thing I have noticed over the years and I am sure most of you can attest to is that Nigeria does not suffer from shortage of ideas. What we suffer from is a failure to connect ideas to reality. Too often, policy in this country has been an academic exercise detached from the very people it is meant to serve. Documents are produced, committees are set up, reports are written, white papers are produced, yet nothing changes in the lives of the people which is what matters most.
7. Policy is not about sounding intelligent. It is not about volume or complexity. You must resist the temptation to treat symptoms while ignoring causes. You must go beneath the surface. You must think outside of the box. You must ask hard questions about why things are not working in this country. This is the burden before you.
8. In recent years, government has continued to regale us with statistics about increased revenue, economic growth, and GDP performance. These figures are meaningless when they do not positively affect the lives of the people. A growing economy that leaves the majority behind in poverty is fundamentally flawed. Economic progress must be measured by its impact on people’s lives, not by statistics alone.
9. Take energy, for example. When energy is expensive and unreliable, productivity collapses, businesses struggle, jobs disappear, and poverty deepens. Any serious policy conversation must be anchored on a simple but crucial question; how do we make energy affordable and accessible to the majority of our people?
10. Government has removed fuel subsidy. The question is not whether subsidy removal is desirable or not. The real question is whether the people now paying more for fuel can see tangible benefits reflected in other areas of their lives. Clearly, the answer is no. Nigerians who are paying more for fuel, for food, for medications, for transportation, housing and electricity are asking a very pertinent question: WHAT WOULD YOUR PARTY DO DIFFERENTLY?
11. We must answer with clarity, firm commitment, and measurable outcomes they can see and feel, not propaganda. There must be no ambiguity in our answer. This is the task before you.
12. Consider transport and mobility. This is not merely a question of how much we spend on roads. Transport determines access to work, markets, schools, and hospitals. When movement becomes unaffordable, opportunity shrinks. Our party’s policies must ensure that transportation remains a social and economic lifeline for our people.
13. Food and agriculture demand the same seriousness. This sector goes beyond farming alone. Insecurity, poor storage, weak supply chains, and rising input costs mean farmers produce less while consumers pay more. Until we understand how security, infrastructure, finance, and climate pressures intersect with food production, we will continue to treat hunger as an accident rather than a policy failure.
14. We must also confront security, not as another budget line, but as a lived reality. Insecurity is not only about loss of life. It is about abandoned farms, displaced communities in IDP Camps, kidnapping, closed schools, and an atmosphere of fear that suffocates economic activity. A country that cannot secure its people cannot grow its economy, no matter how impressive its plans appear on paper.
15. Healthcare is equally critical, it is not measured by the number of hospitals built, but more-so by access and affordability. Ill health pushes families into poverty faster than almost anything else. A policy framework that fails to grasp this connection will always underestimate the true cost of neglect.
16. Sound, quality education and human capital deserve the same consideration. Education is not successful simply because classrooms exist. It succeeds when learning happens, when skills are acquired, and when young people are equipped to compete meaningfully in the global economy. Education is a sine-qua-non to development, in this regard, I charge the committee to look into the possibility of criminalizing actions of parents who fail to send their children to school.
17. We must also pay attention to jobs, small businesses, and the informal economy, because this is where most Nigerians are active participants. When policies ignore how people actually earn a living, they fail before they begin.
18. We must put in place safety measures that make it difficult, if not impossible for any individual to take total control of the party no matter how rich or powerful he or she may be.
19. We must reckon with governance itself. Weak institutions, poor coordination, and lack of accountability are not abstract problems. They are the reason good ideas collapse at the point of execution. When governance is broken, policy becomes theory.
20. You are not here simply to generate proposals. You are here to ensure that every recommendation is practicable. You must listen, not only to experts, but to farmers, traders, workers, parents, Millennial, GEN-Z, and GEN-Alpha whose lives are shaped by the decisions we make. You must test every idea against a simple but demanding question, does this reduce suffering, or does it merely rearrange it?
21. Nigeria does not need rhetorics. She needs honest thinking and workable solutions.
22. As a party, we must be prepared not just to win power, but to justify power through service. The ADC must be known not for noise, but for seriousness. Not for empty promises, but for performance, not for propaganda, but for reality.
23. Today, therefore, is not the end of a process. It is the beginning of a responsibility. I expect you to break into sub-committees in line with your areas of core competences. The committee should feel free to co-opt experts and professionals that can add value to this critical assignment.
24. On behalf of the National Working Committee and the entire family of the African Democratic Congress, I hereby inaugurate the ADC Policy and Manifesto Committee. I charge you to work with intellectual rigour, moral clarity, and a deep sense of national duty.
25. May your work help to build a party that understands the country it seeks to lead, and a country that can once again believe that leadership is capable of easing pain and restoring hope.
26. God bless the African Democratic Congress and the Federal Republic of Nigeria.