The African Democratic Congress (ADC) said on Monday that Peter Obi, who recently left the party, enjoyed the most preferential treatment within the party compared to any other member.
Speaking during an interview on Arise Television on Monday, the party spokesperson, Bolaji Abdullahi, rejected suggestions that Mr Obi was sidelined or unfairly treated, describing such claims as inaccurate and disconnected from the internal realities of the party.
“I can tell you, and I say this without any fear of contradiction, as the national publicity secretary of the ADC, that none of the aspirants, none of the leaders in this party, has been treated or favoured the way His Excellency Peter Obi has been treated and accommodated within this structure,” he said.
Mr Obi, who joined the ADC in March after leaving the Labour Party (LP) due to its prolonged internal crisis left the party in May. He, alongside Rabiu Kwankwaso, who also left the ADC, joined the National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Sunday.
In his resignation letter to the ADC, Mr Obi said his decision to leave the party was not based on personal grievances but on the party’s internal divisions, legal disputes, external influence, and an increasingly hostile political environment.
“Let me state clearly: my decision to leave the ADC is not because our highly respected Chairman, Senator David Mark, treated me badly, nor because my leader and elder brother, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, or any other respected leaders did anything personally wrong to me. I will continue to respect them,” he wrote.
“However, the same Nigerian state and its agents that created unnecessary crises and hostility within the Labour Party that forced me to leave now appear to be finding their way into the ADC, with endless court cases, internal battles, suspicion, and division, instead of focusing on deeper national problems and playing politics built more on control and exclusion than on service and nation-building.”
Mr Abdullahi said any suggestion that anyone was treated unfairly within the party was not true.
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According to him, the ADC had deliberately structured its coalition arrangement to accommodate major political figures in a way that ensured inclusivity.
“We made a conscious decision when this coalition started that this was not going to be a narrow arrangement. It was going to be broad-based. It was going to include everybody who believes that the direction of this country needs to change,” he explained.
“In that process, concessions were made, space was created, responsibilities were shared. And in that entire arrangement, I can say without hesitation that Peter Obi benefited from a level of accommodation that no other person in that space benefited from.”