The special adviser on information and strategy to President Bola Tinubu, Bayo Onanuga, has urged the African Democratic Congress (ADC) to stop holding the president and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) responsible for its “woes”.
The statement follows the leadership crisis within the ADC, which led to the derecognition of both the David Mark-led leadership and the Nafiu Bala faction by INEC on Wednesday.
In an earlier statement, Mohammed Haruna, INEC’s commissioner for information and voter education, said the commission would refrain from engaging with both factions, citing the March 12 court of appeal judgment. INEC also said it would not attend meetings, congresses or conventions of the groups pending the outcome of a case before the federal high court.
Reacting, the Mark-led ADC called for the immediate removal of Joash Amupitan, INEC chairman, alleging that the commission’s interpretation of the court ruling showed bias and could no longer be trusted.
At a press conference in Abuja, David Mark accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Tinubu of influencing INEC to weaken opposition parties in an attempt to establish a one-party system.
However, the APC countered the claim, alleging that the Mark-led executives had taken control of the ADC while disregarding the party’s constitution and internal structures.
In a post shared on X on Thursday, Onanuga advised the ADC to stop involving Tinubu and INEC in its internal disputes. He described the party’s challenges as self-inflicted and said they had been worsened by what he termed a misinterpretation of the principle of status quo ante bellum in the appeal court ruling.
Onanuga, who titled his post ‘Status quo versus status quo ante bellum: An explainer to the wailing ADC’, said he consulted artificial intelligence and Google to explain the meaning of the Latin terms.
“Status quo ante bellum means the state existing before the war,” he said.
He explained that the term is commonly used in diplomacy to describe a situation where neither side gains or loses territory, power or economic rights, effectively restoring conditions to what they were before a conflict.
“The related phrase status quo ante, literally ‘the status before’, refers to the state of affairs that existed previously,” he said.
Onanuga further stated that in the case involving Nafiu Gombe versus ADC, David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola, “status quo ante bellum” implies reverting the party to its condition before the dispute involving Ralph Nwoye and Atiku Abubakar.
He added that Bala has maintained he remains the vice-chairman of the ADC, insisting he never resigned and should have assumed leadership following Nwoye’s exit.
“The ADC should stop blaming President Tinubu and INEC for its self-inflicted woes,” he added.