ADC Vows To Hold Politicians Accountable For Promises

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) says it is introducing a new framework for the 2027 elections that would compel its candidates to govern based on clearly defined commitments made to Nigerians.

It declared that Nigerian politics can no longer continue as a cycle of empty promises, abandoned manifestos and unaccountable leadership.

Speaking on the party’s new policy direction in Abuja yesterday, the secretary of the ADC Policy and Manifesto Committee, Salihu Mohammed Lukman, said the party is determined to fundamentally change the culture of governance in Nigeria by ensuring that elected officials are directly tied to measurable policy commitments contained in the party’s manifesto and policy principles.

Lukman said one of the greatest failures of governance in Nigeria had been the consistent abandonment of campaign promises immediately after elections, adding that Nigerians had grown tired of rhetoric without delivery.

According to him, the ADC’s newly adopted manifesto and policy principles represent a serious attempt to rebuild trust between citizens and political leadership by placing accountability, measurable outcomes, and citizen welfare at the centre of governance.

“The Nigerian state must be reconstructed to serve the Nigerian citizen,” Lukman stated.

He explained that the ADC manifesto was built around 12 major sectors, including the economy, agriculture, education, healthcare, infrastructure, security, governance and industrialisation, with detailed implementation recommendations designed to move Nigeria away from what he described as a dysfunctional and consumption-driven system.

Lukman stated that unlike the current approach to governance, where political promises are often treated as campaign slogans, the ADC intends to institutionalise what he described as “manifesto compliance as a governance norm.”

According to him, ADC candidates for the 2027 elections will undergo induction and orientation programmes aimed at ensuring that they understand, internalise, and commit themselves to implementing the party’s manifesto once elected into office.

“Nigerians are anxiously looking forward to a situation whereby politicians can be held accountable for the electoral promises they made ahead of elections. This is an area that should distinguish the ADC from the APC and other parties in the country,” he said.

He further criticised the failure of the ruling APC to govern in line with the promises it made to Nigerians in 2015, arguing that the absence of ideological discipline and policy accountability has contributed significantly to the country’s worsening economic and social conditions.

“One of the biggest disappointments Nigerians have had with the APC is how, after winning the 2015 elections, the party abandoned its manifesto and almost all the electoral promises it made in 2015,” Lukman stated.

He noted that the ADC’s policy direction rejects economic policies that impose hardship on citizens without adequate social protection, insisting that reforms must be humane, properly sequenced, and focused on improving living conditions.

“Macroeconomic stability must protect people, not just markets,” he said.