A faction of the African Democratic Congress on Sunday presented Mr. Dumebi Kachikwu as its only presidential candidate for the 2027 general election as the businessman and politician unveiled an ambitious reform agenda focused on what he termed a “Nigerian Patriot Act” that would compel public office holders to use the same public services available to ordinary Nigerians.
He made this statement at a special convention held on Sunday night in Abuja in the face of an ongoing leadership realignment within the party.
If elected president in 2027, Kachikwu said his first engagement with the National Assembly would be the presentation of the proposed legislation aimed at ending what he referred to as the disconnect between Nigeria’s political elite and the masses.
The proposed bill would also prevent public servants and their families from accessing private or foreign schools and hospitals and prohibit them from using private generators and boreholes that average citizens cannot access, he said.
“We cannot have different rules for different criminals. “You do the crime, you do the time,” Kachikwu said in his acceptance speech.
“I think my first executive interface with the National Assembly, if I’m privileged to lead this country, will be to present a bill that I’ve called the Nigerian Patriot Act,” he said.
“It is a bill of fairness and equality. It is a bill that says we’re all in this together. This is a bill to ensure that public servants cannot use the privileges that they cannot give to a common man.”
The ADC presidential candidate said every person seeking public office must be made to depend on the same health care, education and public utilities used by ordinary Nigerians.
“If you want to be in the public service, you’ve got to use the same services the masses use. There will be no private schools for our families, no foreign schools for our families, no private hospitals for us and our families, no foreign hospitals for us and our families, no generators in our homes, no boreholes in our homes,” he said.
Kachikwu also used the occasion to attack the nation’s political establishment, accusing successive leaders of deepening division, poverty and insecurity, but failing to build an inclusive national identity.
He said Nigeria must put behind ethnic and regional politics in favour of merit-based leadership and national unity.
“We are not the Republic of Nigeria, the Hausa/Fulani. We are neither the Ndigbo Republic of Nigeria nor the Oduduwa Republic of Nigeria. “We are the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” he said.
“We will no longer talk of Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba or of North and South but of one indivisible Nigeria,” he added.
The ADC candidate also dismissed zoning politics, saying leaders should be chosen on competence, not ethnicity or religion.
“We will zone out all those who are for zoning and bring in a Nigeria that will value merit, character and knowhow above primordial sentiments,” he added.
Kachikwu promised sweeping reforms in the economy and technology, including construction of technology parks in all senatorial districts, nationwide broadband expansion and the transformation of farming into large scale agribusiness.
He said Nigeria’s economic recovery would largely depend on digital innovation and investment in human capital.
“My government will make broadband available and affordable for all because that’s the only leverage our kids have to compete in this new world,” he said.
“We will establish technology parks in all senatorial districts in Nigeria which will serve as incubation centres for digital jobs, research and development.”
He also criticised what he called wasteful borrowings by successive governments, cautioning against piling up sovereign debts on projects that have no economic value.
“We can’t borrow money to build bridges and highways to nowhere when the internet is the highway of the future,” he said.
Kachikwu also vowed to deal with terrorists, kidnappers and criminal gangs with “overwhelming force”, and promised to arm willing citizens to defend communities, while going after sponsors of violent groups.
We will meet them and smash them. “This war will be fought on our terms,” he said.
We will arm all the willing and able to clear our nation of these foreign invaders. We will take the fight to their camps as we arrest and prosecute their sponsors.”
He also pledged to restore the dignity of human life and address the issues of ritual killings, kidnapping and internet fraud through economic empowerment and tougher law enforcement.
The presidential aspirant equally lambasted the government of President Bola Tinubu, accusing it of “weaponizing poverty and hunger,” while chiding opposition parties for failing to offer practical alternatives.
According to him, “The Nigerian people need to know what we will do different from President Tinubu. They are tired of an opposition that is inept, incompetent and plays politics with our collective sorrows.
“This election should be a battle of ideas, not campaigns of calumny.”
Kachikwu said his faction consciously opted not to be part of what he called “the coalition of the old fighting the old,” arguing that Nigeria needed new thoughts and not old political battles.
Meanwhile, there was also a major shake-up of leadership in the ADC faction at the convention as a new structure was announced with Muhammad Bashir Abdulkadir emerging as national chairman.
The faction said it had dissolved a rival National Working Committee that was allegedly aligned to former Senate President David Mark and former Osun State governor Rauf Aregbesola.
Abdulkadir, who spoke at the event, described the convention as a watershed in the party’s survival, accusing unnamed interests of attempting to hijack the ADC for personal political battles.
“This is not a private organization. It is a political party with rules, and nobody is bigger than the constitution,” he said.
Chairman of the faction’s state chairmen, Kingsley Temitope Oga, described the gathering as a defining “survival moment” for the party, saying months of internal disputes had tested the ADC’s cohesion.
“Today we can proudly say ADC has survived, matured and risen stronger,” Oga said.
But even as the convention was promising national unity, there were said to be moments of discord and interruptions, underscoring the continued divisions within the opposition party as it prepares for the 2027 elections.
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