The national caucus of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) has extracted commitment from the aspirants to the party’s presidential ticket in 2027, to support whoever wins the ticket.
Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, national leader of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, and and former Rivers State governor, Chibuike Amaechi, are known aspirants to the ADC ticket.
Caucus members after their meeting on Thursday in Abuja, according to briefing by the interim National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, extracted commitment from the aspirants to support whoever emergences as the preferred presidential candidate.
Apart from Obi, Atiku and Amaechi were present at the meeting, but Mallam Abdullahi said the former Anambra State governor who is presently in the United States of America, gave his commitment to the outcome of the meeting.
The ADC spokesperson said the causus gave final order to “all members to resign membership of other political parties,” but was silent on the timeline.
Obi and el-Rufai had requested to be allowed to execute the August 16 parliamentary by-election and the November 8 Anambra governorship election in their legacy parties before joining the coalition platform.
Though Atiku has resigned from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he is not yet a registered member of the ADC
Obi, at the moment, has pledged support to the Anambra State Labour Party governorship candidate, Dr. George Moghalu, even though ADC is also fielding a candidate in the election.
According to Mallam Abdullahi, the ADC National Working Committee (NWC) was told to fix date for the Ekiti and Osun states off-cycle governorship elections that will hold next year.
He also disclosed that coalition members floating the new political associations, the All Democratic Alliance (ADA), were ordered to discontinue with the registration with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and focus on the ADC.
The interim National Chairman, Senator David Mark and Amaechi, were earlier linked with the new association, but Abdullahi said they were told to focus attention on the coalition platform.
This was the first caucus meeting since the new leadership of the party was accorded recognition by INEC.
Attendance at the meeting include Mark, Atiku, el-Rufai, Amaechi, the National Secretary, Ogbeni Rauf, former Sokoto State governor Senator Aminu Tambuwal, among others.
