By Myke Uzendu, Abuja
The National Chairman of African Democratic Congress (ADC), Senator David Mark, has expressed optimism that the party is on the right footing to sack the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2027 general election.
The former Senate President tasked members to take advantage of the party’s membership and revalidation exercise to obtain their membership card and also mobilize all Nigerians to embrace the party.
Mark made the boast in his opening speech on Thursday in Abuja during the flag-off of Membership Registration and Revalidation Exercise.
According to the National Chairman, “ADC is a new bride in town. Everybody, anywhere you go to, people want to join ADC, they clamour to get the cards. People have been saying, where are your cards? The cards are out now.
“I assure you that in 2027, ADC will form the government and this is the foundation. It is the foundation that we are laying today” he said.
The national secretary of the party, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola in his remarks, said that ADC will be real and open in its registration and membership process. He said that while other party’s bandy false figures and end up in falsehood even after they win elections, ADC will provide fact and will be transparent in all its dealings.
“Across our political landscape, parties have become addicted to the illusion of size. They inflate membership rolls with phantom names, duplicate entries, and invented identities—all to project a strength they do not possess. The registers are fat, but the structures are hollow.
“We must not follow that path. We must resist—with every fibre of our conviction—the temptation to bloat our figures with imaginary people. It does not help us. It does not strengthen us. At the end of such an exercise, all we will have is a token register propped up by a weak structure—impressive on paper, powerless in practice.
“A party of ghosts cannot win elections. A party of ghosts cannot govern. A party of ghosts cannot hold its leaders to account. And a party of ghosts will, inevitably, be haunted by its own dishonesty,” Aregbosola said.
The party scribe said that party must start exhibiting integrity and discipline by producing real membership data.
“What we need—what we must build with urgency and discipline—is a membership register of integrity. Every name must belong to a real person. Every person must be documented, verified, and accounted for. This is not bureaucracy; this is the architecture of trust.
“Every one of us—from national leadership down to the ward level—must work together to ensure that only real people are registered and properly documented. This is a collective responsibility. No leader should look the other way when registrations are padded. No officer should accept figures that cannot withstand scrutiny. We must be our own auditors before the public audits us.
“The integrity of our register is the integrity of our party. If we cannot be honest about who we are, we have no moral authority to demand honesty from those who govern” he said.
He added that ADC must redefine democracy through a transparent process.
“The African Democratic Congress does not seek merely to participate in Nigeria’s democracy. We seek to redefine it. We aspire to be the model of democratic sophistication—in our operations, in our internal governance, and in the ownership every member feels over this institution.
“Democratic sophistication means that our processes are transparent, that our decisions are arrived at through consultation, and that every member—regardless of their position—has a voice that is heard and respected. It means that our party constitution is not a document we reference when convenient, but the supreme law that governs all our affairs.
“It means we do not merely talk about democracy; we practise it. From how we select our candidates to how we manage our finances, from how we resolve disputes to how we engage with the electorate—every action must reflect the democratic standard we promise the nation” the party scribe added.
Explaining details of the registration process, Chairman of the Membership Registration and Revalidation Committee, Kashim Imam said the exercise is a mixture of online and manual registration. He said that registration is open to all Nigerians interested in the ADC adding that voter’s card number will be used as Unique ID.
The event was attended by party stakeholders and leaders from all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
