ADC Slams Tinubu: Northern Appointments Won’t Restore Trust
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has criticized President Bola Tinubu’s recent appointments of Northerners, including Muhammad Babangida as Chairman of the Bank of Agriculture, as a “desperate, cynical attempt” to regain Northern trust after over a year of alleged neglect. In a statement on July 19, 2025, ADC’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, dismissed the appointments as “too little, too late,” stating: “You cannot marginalise a region for over 25 months and expect applause because you suddenly remembered on the 26th month that Nigeria is bigger than Lagos State.”
Abdullahi described the appointments as “political panic management” amid growing discontent and a rising opposition coalition. He accused the Tinubu administration of ignoring Northern issues, saying: “For over a year, this government turned a blind eye as bandits terrorised villages in the North, as our farmers abandoned their lands and as rural economies crumbled under the weight of poorly thought-out fuel subsidy removal.”
He added: “Every major decision of this administration, from subsidy removal to a majority of the political appointments, had been taken without the North at the table. Now that the consequences of those decisions have become glaring, the president is doling out appointments as consolation prizes. But 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.”
The ADC urged Tinubu to abandon “Bourdillon-style appeasement politics” for genuine national inclusion, emphasizing: “You cannot patch a broken roof with press releases and photo-ops. 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.
