Dare Babalola
Umar Ardo, a promoter of the All Democratic Alliance (ADA), has accused the leadership of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) of deliberately frustrating efforts to secure registration for ADA by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Ardo made the allegation on Wednesday, while fielding questions on The Morning Show, a programme on Arise Television.
He explained that the opposition coalition’s initial strategy involved pursuing two parallel paths: merging with the ADC as a national opposition platform, while simultaneously pushing for ADA’s registration as a fallback option.
He stated that those in favour of registering a new party were assigned to pursue ADA’s INEC approval, with the possibility of merging with the other group later.
Ardo said the arrangement was designed to provide a fallback option in case either platform encountered challenges.
However, he alleged that the ADC leadership has taken measures to impede the registration process of ADA.
Ardo said, “Well, the initial idea was that, let us take two positions at the same time while we fuse into ADC, that is the national opposition coalition, those who are committed to the registration of the political party now go in to register the ADA and that at a later time, we might meet somewhere in the field.
“If ADC encounters problem, ADA is always there for ADC. If ADA encounters a problem and could not be registered, they could always move into the ADC.
“Now this could have gone in very well harmoniously. But with the situation, it is apparent that the ADC leadership and ADC group is now deliberately trying to frustrate the registration of ADA.
“If they had allowed us to fight it out with INEC and get it done without them coming in to interfere and put a clog in our wheel of progress, then we will say, okay, at the end of the day, we will cooperate.
“But now, having come up with doing this thing, why should we cooperate with them?”
