By Kazeem Waris
Vice-presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Rotimi Amaechi, has issued a blunt challenge to leaders of the party ahead of the 2027 presidential election, declaring that a victory for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would effectively mark the political retirement of the opposition’s current leadership.
Amaechi, a former governor of Rivers State and former Minister of Transportation, made the declaration on Wednesday in Abuja at the ADC National Women League Conference, where he urged party leaders and supporters to return to their wards and mobilise voters ahead of the election.
His message to party members was direct: “If APC wins the 2027 elections, we are retired from politics.”
Amaechi said the ADC’s chances would depend on grassroots mobilisation, particularly the ability of party leaders to deliver votes from their respective wards.
“If you bring two thousand votes per ward, don’t win your ward. Just bring two thousand votes, we have won the election,”he told the gathering.
He urged party members outside the Federal Capital Territory to return to their states and begin campaigning at the grassroots.
“If you are not from FCT, go home and campaign. Me, I am going on Wednesday. I will not wear suit, I will dress like a young man,” Amaechi said.
He said he would personally campaign across states ahead of the election, including for governorship candidates, arguing that control of state governments would be important to any presidential administration.
“You will see me in Kebbi, Yola, Rivers, Delta fighting for the governorship elections, because the presidential candidate cannot govern without the governors,” he said.
Amaechi, who was a prominent figure in the APC’s 2015 campaign against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), drew on that experience to urge ADC supporters to replicate the grassroots mobilisation he said helped the APC defeat the PDP at the centre.
According to him, women played a major role in the mobilisation effort.
“When we were in APC and we wanted to remove your government, you saw what we did. We brought out the women. In every state we went to, women were in front,” he said.
He added: “We spoke to them, we met with them at night, and we made sure that we told them that if they did not come out to vote, we would not win. And they came out. We fought the war, and we won.”
Amaechi subsequently contrasted the economic conditions he described during the 2015 election period with what he characterised as today’s cost-of-living pressures.
He claimed that Nigerians were facing greater difficulty affording food, education and other necessities, and used the situation to urge voters, particularly women, to mobilise politically.
“How many of you can afford the food? How many of you can pay school fees without texting, texting to Dino or somebody else to give you some money for school fees?” he asked.
Amaechi also cited figures relating to out-of-school children and poverty, using them to criticise the Tinubu administration.
He said the situation required voters to “take the battle into your hands.”
The former Rivers governor made a particularly strong appeal to women in northern Nigeria, urging them to participate actively in the 2027 election.
“If all the women in the North come out to vote, Tinubu cannot announce any result,” Amaechi said.
His comments were part of a broader appeal for ADC supporters to translate political support into votes at the ward level.
He told the women that their participation could determine whether the party succeeds in its effort to challenge the ruling APC in 2027.
Also addressing the conference, Hajiya Titi Atiku Abubakar urged women to mobilise voters and resist what she described as attempts to influence them through material inducements.
She cited rising prices of medicines and other household necessities as evidence of the economic pressure facing Nigerians.
“If you go to the market, you cannot buy anything, even medicine,” she said, recounting that medicine she previously bought for N400 now cost N1, 000.
She urged the women to take the ADC message to markets, communities and rural areas.
“Women, I implore you. Women, I beg you. Don’t let them come and buy you with food,” she said.
Titi Atiku also alleged that some contractors were being denied payments because of their political association, while saying the ADC would need to mobilise despite having limited financial resources.
“We, ADC, don’t have money. Let me tell you, we have to get it by force. We have to get it,” she said.
She further linked the rising cost of living to difficulties families face in keeping their children in school.
The Abuja conference therefore ended with the ADC leadership urging its women members to take the party’s campaign beyond the national capital and into wards, communities and households ahead of the 2027 presidential contest.
For Amaechi, the immediate task is grassroots mobilisation and he framed the stakes for his party’s leadership in stark terms. “If you don’t want us to retire from politics, we must go home.”
