By Lateef Ibrahim, Abuja
The National Chairman of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Dr Ralph Okey Nwosu has expressed the confidence that the party will produce the next President of the country come year 2027, declaring emphatically that it will do so with not less than 35 million votes.
Dr Okey Nwosu said this on Wednesday at the opening of the ADC Global Summit with the theme, “Repositioning Nigeria: How Collective Responsibility and Democratic Participation Can Drive Nigeria’s Turnaround”, in Abuja.
The ADC National Chairman, who disclosed that the party is currently building a coalition of patriots and political parties, was optimistic that the party will win the nation presidential election come 2027.
At the summit which attracted members and participants from all parts of the country, Dr Okey Nwosu said, “‘For the first time, the presidency will be won by ADC and we are going to score nothing less than 35 million votes.
‘We have in Nigeria 99 million voters as recorded before the 2023 general election. People are not voting. People are tired. We are mobilizing them.
“We are mobilizing people that just turned 18. As a matter of fact, as of now we have about 170 million voters.
“We are mobilizing people that just turned 18. We are mobilizing people that have refused to vote. And we have people who have the capacity to do the mobilization. A new beginning has come”, he said.
Continuing, he said, “Our national youth teams have assured me that they are going to bring out a minimum of 30 million votes and I am sure they are going to do that.
“The civil societies are already organizing. They just joined us not more than six months ago but by now, their membership is over 5 million. They are going to pull out 20 million.
“The 35 million benchmark, I guess, is just an understatement because of some of the challenges we have in this country.
“For the first time, the next president of Nigeria will win clearly with over 30 million votes, and it will be delivered with handshake and love.
“In that way, our democracy will now begin to take the path that it should take.
“We have solid minerals of all sorts. We have human capacity”, he said.
The National Chairman of ADC berated the current administration in power of performing below expectations.
His words, “Under this administration in place, for instance, Nigeria could not go for the Olympic event, it couldn’t organize well for the Olympic event and we scored zero. We have never heard of it before. A lot of sports activities, they say we didn’t have money, no budget. “But they have 20-something billion Naira to build one house for an elected person. They have over 100 billion to renovate the National Assembly. They have almost 15-something trillion to give out for a contract, a project that we don’t need. We may not even need for the next 10 years.
“We are going to go to the field. Are we ready to give minimum, 35 million votes to the next president? Yes”, he maintained.
One of the speakers at the event, Hon (Mrs) Irene Awunah-Ikyegh expressed disappointment that a bill seeking for rotational presidency among the six geo-political zones in the country was jettisoned at the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
She described the rejection of the bill at the lower arm of the National Assembly as a great injustice to the country.
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