According to a video shared on YouTube by Trust TV on Saturday, July 5, 2025, the spokesperson of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Bolaji Abdullahi, delivered a compelling and unflinchingly honest assessment of Nigeria’s political reality—one that strikes at the very heart of the nation’s democratic future.
In a political atmosphere marred by distrust, unmet expectations, and recycled faces, Abdullahi’s message is both a sobering reminder and a call to responsibility: “We cannot bring angels to run this country.”
In his remarks, Abdullahi underscored the urgent need for Nigeria to go beyond reactionary politics and start building real political institutions.
“Can we start by trying to build a proper political party?” he asked pointedly, laying bare the foundational flaw in the country’s governance model.
According to him, most political parties in Nigeria lack a concrete plan to develop a successor generation of leaders. “If you look around, there’s no party that has a plan for a successor generation. Within our ranks, we acknowledge that many members of ADC that are making up this coalition are in their 70s, 60s, 50s… a lot more in the 60s.”
That candid recognition has become a cornerstone of ADC’s long-term vision. It is not simply about gaining political power, Abdullahi argued, but about intentionally grooming a new generation of politicians grounded in principles and public service.
“If you don’t do that and start now to begin to lay the proper ground for them to understand what politics is meant to serve, then we will have lost the opportunity.”
This long-term, future-facing outlook is what attracted figures like Abdullahi to the ADC platform—an alternative space that promises more than just rhetoric.
When critics labeled the ADC movement as an “anti-Tinubu coalition,” Abdullahi was quick to respond. “We say no, we are not just anti-Tinubu coalition.
We have a long-term vision of politics for Nigeria. We believe that, God helping us with this party, we can begin to lay a solid foundation for a political tradition in Nigeria.”
But even with this vision, skepticism from Nigerians remains. Abdullahi acknowledged the cynicism among the electorate, especially those who felt betrayed after the 2015 elections.
“It’s understandable because we were here in 2014, 2015 when we brought the message of change, and Nigerians don’t really think that what followed matched their expectation. So it’s only natural that people become cynical and begin to tell themselves, ‘we’ve seen all this before.’”
Yet, he warns against allowing that skepticism to devolve into hopelessness. “Politics is for politicians,” he stated firmly.
“You have to be a politician to play politics.” He pointed out that almost every notable politician in Nigeria has, at one time or another, been affiliated with different political parties or held some government office.
“So it is easy to tie everybody with the same brush… but we cannot give up.”
His final message was powerful in its realism: “We cannot bring angels to run this country. We cannot manufacture a new set of politicians.
You can bring new people, new faces, new blood—but new blood has to be piped through a system.”
In that simple truth lies both the challenge and the opportunity: Nigeria must stop waiting for angels and start building the systems that will raise leaders who can truly deliver.
