The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has issued a scathing rebuke of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s recent wave of appointments, describing them as a belated and disingenuous attempt to regain the trust of the Northern region.
In a strongly worded statement signed by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC characterized the appointments as “a desperate, cynical attempt to buy back the trust that he has spent over a year squandering, particularly in Northern Nigeria.”
According to the opposition party, the latest appointments are simply too little and have come too late to correct the damage done. “You cannot marginalise a region for over twenty-five months and expect applause because you suddenly remembered on the twenty-sixth month that Nigeria is bigger than Lagos State,” the statement read.
The ADC dismissed the appointments as mere “political panic management,” alleging they are part of a rushed effort to conceal the deep wounds inflicted on Northern Nigeria through more than a year of “calculated neglect, presidential arrogance, and unprecedented nepotism.”
“For over a year,” Abdullahi stated, “this government turned a blind eye as bandits terrorised villages in the North, as our farmers abandoned their land, and as rural economies crumbled under the weight of poorly thought-out fuel subsidy removal.”
The ADC also linked the sudden inclusivity to growing public dissatisfaction and the emergence of a strong opposition coalition, particularly in the North and increasingly across the country. Abdullahi accused the Tinubu administration of only now seeking to include the region in governance because of political pressure.
“Every major decision of this administration from the removal of fuel subsidy to the overwhelming majority of political appointments was made without Northern representation at the table,” the party said. “Now that the consequences of those decisions have become glaringly obvious, the President is scrambling to offer appointments as consolation prizes.”
The party emphasized that such gestures are not lost on Northern Nigerians, who they said are well aware of the symbolic nature of the appointments and are unlikely to be swayed by them.
“Northerners, as co-owners of our great federal republic, know better than to be deceived by these token appointments. They see through President Tinubu’s actions — and can sense that this is not genuine,” Abdullahi warned. “Tokenism is not inclusion, and symbolism is not governance.”
In its conclusion, the ADC urged the Tinubu administration to abandon what it called “Bourdillon-style appeasement politics”—a reference to the Lagos stronghold associated with Tinubu and instead pursue authentic national inclusion.
“You cannot patch a broken roof with press releases and photo-ops,” the party cautioned. “And you certainly cannot restore the trust that you have lost with the public by pretending that titles are a substitute for genuine commitment to nation-building.”
The ADC called for a reset of the administration’s approach one that reflects true consultation, policy equity, and adherence to the federal character principle as the only viable path to national cohesion and sustainable governance.
