A splinter group of the African Democratic Congress in Adamawa State has suspended former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and ex-Secretary to the Government of the Federation Babachir Lawal, citing gross indiscipline. Alhaji Raji Zumo, who leads the faction, told reporters in Yola that the suspension also covers members loyal to Sadiq Dasin's executive council and warned that further disciplinary steps will follow. Zumo accused the two heavyweights of trying to handpick candidates for the 2027 polls, insisting the party "is not a personal property" and will not be turned into "a personal estate." He claimed their manoeuvres had already damaged the ADC's reputation and vowed that the faction would resist any move that weakens its credibility.
Alhaji Raji Zumo's faction has just demonstrated what internal democracy looks like when it is weaponised: suspend the biggest names before they suspend you. By striking first at Atiku and Babachir Lawal, the Zumo camp signals that 2027 alliances inside Adamawa are already being redrawn, and the ADC is determined not to become a retirement annex for PDP elders shopping for new ballot labels.
The timing is everything. With the general election still three years away, early control of party structures decides who pockets automatic tickets, controls delegate lists and harvests the cash that follows. Atiku's last presidential run left him without a traditional platform; Babachir, disgraced out of APC, needs a new political base. Both men drifting into ADC territory threatened to swamp the little-known party, so the Zumo faction moved to protect its own pipeline of patronage.
For ordinary card-carrying members in Adamawa, this suspension means their next ward congress will be a battlefield. If the national ADC secretariat overturns the purge, Zumo's group may walk out and form yet another micro-party, leaving local supporters to rebuild structures from scratch. The bigger risk is that voters simply tune out, seeing the same familiar faces recycling under new acronyms.
The episode fits a pattern: every election cycle, smaller parties morph into lifeboats for sinking political titans, then fracture when the newcomers demand instant control. Until Nigeria's electoral maths rewards ideology over ballot access, suspensions like this will remain less about discipline and more about who gets to auction the party logo to the highest bidder.
💡 NaijaBuzz is a news aggregator. This content is curated and editorially enhanced from third-party sources. The NaijaBuzz Take represents editorial opinion and analysis, not established fact.
