Coalition Playbook Belongs to Tinubu, Buhari — Sowunmi Criticises ADC Model

Convener of The Alternative, Segun Sowunmi, has faulted the coalition drive built around the African Democratic Congress (ADC), arguing that the only successful coalition model in Nigerian politics belongs to President Bola Tinubu and former President Muhammadu Buhari and cannot be casually replicated.

Speaking on TVC’s Breakfast programme on Thursday, Sowunmi said the political alliance that led to the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was the result of years of ideological consistency and sustained political effort—elements he said are absent in the current ADC-led coalition push.

“First of all, you must concede that the playbook of a coalition political party belongs to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Muhammadu Buhari in that bloc. I don’t mean them as individuals, but within their bloc. They brought stability of ideological situations to the table,” Sowunmi said.

He explained that Tinubu and Buhari were able to work together because of their clearly defined political identities, noting that Tinubu had long been rooted in the AD and AC political tradition, while Buhari consistently identified with the ANPP.

“To that extent, when they wanted to do a coalition, they could imagine themselves to be from the same material, only joining together political numbers,” he added.

Sowunmi criticised current coalition advocates, particularly within the ADC, accusing them of attempting to copy a model they neither understand nor helped to build.

“The challenge with these people now is that those who want to do coalition are a cheap, fake set of humans who do not understand that you have to rewrite the book,” he said.

“You can’t run on the playbook of Bola Tinubu and Buhari, which they invented, and think you’re going to beat them at a game they invented.”

He stressed that coalition-building requires extensive grassroots engagement and political sacrifice, noting that Tinubu and Buhari did not achieve their alliance overnight.

According to him, both leaders failed to form a coalition in 2011 and only succeeded later after leaving their former parties and persuading others to join a new political platform.

“If you watch the people calling coalition now, they don’t want to do the heavy lifting,” Sowunmi said. “The hard work of coalition building is going back to the parties at the base.”

Using the ADC as an example, he argued that the party’s internal crisis resulted from attempts to seize control from the top without following constitutional procedures.

“They hopped onto a party that had existed for some time and tried to grab it at the top, without looking at the constitutional requirements,” he said, adding that such an approach was bound to trigger internal conflict.

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