ABUJA, Nigeria — Festus Keyamo, Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation and a senior figure in the All Progressives Congress (APC), has downplayed the emergence of the All Democratic Alliance (ADA), describing it as a routine party registration bid rather than a significant political coalition.
In a statement posted Friday, June 20, 2025, on his verified X (formerly Twitter) account, Keyamo said the application for ADA’s registration with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) does not constitute a coalition or merger, contrary to the claims being made by its promoters.
“This is just a simple application for party registration. There is nothing like a ‘coalition’ here,” Keyamo wrote.
“It is an unnecessary hype the promoters have been struggling to create all along; it is just psychological warfare against Nigerians — a weak attempt at mass appeal.”
The ADA’s registration bid, dated June 19 and co-signed by Akin Ricketts (national chairman) and Abdullahi Musa Elayo (pro tem national secretary), was submitted to INEC by leaders of the Nigerian National Coalition Group (NNCG).
The movement is said to be spearheaded by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and former Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai, both prominent political figures ahead of the 2027 general election.
However, Keyamo rejected suggestions that ADA represents anything close to the seismic political alignment that birthed the APC in 2013.
“No recognised existing political party is part of this,” Keyamo stated.
“If they are thinking of recreating what the APC did in 2013, then this is nothing but a pedestrian joke; a complete mockery of that seismic political coalition that birthed APC in 2013.”
He added that “a few individuals exercising their constitutional right to form a new political party cannot be described as a ‘coalition’ or even a ‘merger’,” and called the announcement a “disappointing anti-climax to all the preceding pomp and pageantry.”
In contrast, the 2013 formation of the APC involved the formal merger of four political parties — the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and a faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP).
That coalition led to the defeat of incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan and the election of Muhammadu Buhari.
