 The African Democratic Congress ADC has appointed Manny Ahmad, a presidential aspirant in 2015, as the chairman of the party's board of trustees. Mr. Ahmad emerged as the party's BOT chairman at the end of the Emergency National Working Committee meeting and critical stakeholders meeting on Tuesday. The party also suspended Ibrahim Manzo, former National Vice Chairman, and 17 state chairman for anti-party activities and utterances aimed at bringing the ADC to disrepute. According to the party's statement, activities of the suspended officials contravened Article 15 of the party's constitution. The statement urged all ADC executives at ward, local governments and state levels to continue structuring the party and the grassroots for campaign to take off and encourage the party candidate at all levels not to be distracted by the activities of a few members but to remain focused ahead of 2023's general election. Joining us live is George Ashiro. He's the ADC Lagos State Chairman. Mr. Ashiro, it's so good to have you join us. It's my pleasure. Good evening. Great. This statement that has been issued by the party, because of the recent happenings within the party where we first heard that the presidential candidate was suspended and then of course we also saw members of the party at the highest echelon saying that they are going to work to make sure that the party does not crash before the elections and then now we're hearing a suspension of 17 party chairman. Are you included in those chairman who have been suspended? No, I'm not that I'm aware of. So what exactly is going on within the party? The party is going through transition. I mean, let's look at it this way. We're fighting ourselves over ideology, not over stealing government money. We're not in charge of the coffers of Nigerian government. We don't have the resources or sort of the larger parties that has come out of whatever activities they have as governors or whatever. So anything we are fighting over as a party, it's based purely on ideology. We have people who want to transition the party and we have those who think stability is important. My own position as a chairman in Lagos State, I am not suspended and is that we have a family and we have issues going on in the party at the moment and I'm one of those trying my best to reach out to all concerned parties to make sure that we come back as a family and we go forward to this election as a unit ready to take on the challenges of governing this country when given the opportunity for Nigerians. So I'm not inclined to be carried away by the various challenges that the parties facing or the back and forth between different members of the same family the position I'm taking as a chairman in the state and this is a position of the state is that we are going to be one of those that will reach out to everyone concerned and try and bring them back together so we can face the greater battle which is for the soul of Nigeria. Might I ask, because you mentioned about the issue of ideology being at the core of the crisis that your party is facing. Might I ask what the ideology of the ADC is, if there be any? Well I essentially ADC is a transformational party. It sees itself as we see ourselves really as a party that wants to move from the old conservative way of governing and leadership to a more transformational method of leadership where we're focusing on policies not on that fatherism not built around individuals but built around ideas and thoughts and solutions to the problems of Nigeria. And those are the kinds of people that have come up to lead the party in different places. And of course when you have, you know, like in the past one year we've had a lot of people that have joined the party that came with different presidential aspirants and all of these people want to impose or to suggest or to bring forth to transition ideas about how the party can be better governed internally and how we can also face the challenges of governing as a country, if you govern the country as a party when we're given the chance by the citizenry, the electorate. And I think that's what's happening. So it's a lot of movements going on internally within the party but the past six months definitely, certainly before the primaries and what you're just seeing now is a bubbling to the surface of ideas and ideologies and our job as leaders is to find a way to bring everybody together and comfort with something that is comforting to all parties concerned. Let's talk about the governorship primaries in Lagos State that, I mean, immediately after that we saw some people leave the party especially one of your governorship candidates, Mr Braypoint. There have also been allegations of short changing and of course corruption within the party which led to certain agreed members leaving the party especially some who would say they were the heart and soul of that party here in Lagos. Would you like to comment? Well, I'm hearing this for the first time because I as a chairman of the party in Lagos conducted that congress, conducted both the congress and the primaries and what we had were two gladiators, two brothers, two people that shook hands the day before the primaries two people that promised me that whatever comes out of the primaries they will remain in the party and build the party knowing fully well that no party is perfect, no group of people are perfect, everyone comes with their fault and the reason we joined is to fix it, not to run away from it and that was the philosophy within which we went through the primaries and I called both candidates the day of the election and I wished them good luck and I said, is everything okay? Prior to that we had a stakeholder meeting and we put up every single requirement for these primaries and we asked them are you okay? And we have the videos and the pictures and everybody said he was okay and then we went to the primaries and you know his politics, his aspirants will do whatever they need to do to win their ticket, that's why they invested nomination fee and our job was to provide a level playing field for both of them and whoever did this homework or did their homework got the ticket and as far as we are concerned in Lagos state, we are one of the few states in the whole country where we actually had contested primaries only two or three states had contested primaries and we had over 600 plus people in that hall making their choices and that's what democracy is all about, people make their choices and once they make their choices as a true democrat you learn to live with it, you grow with it, you build on it and I think that's basically what has happened and this is probably the first time the party has had a chance to respond to any such allegations The suspension of these chairman at different levels or the chairman for different states in the party what does this signal to those who are supposedly looking to political parties as yours as opposed to the major political parties in the country and hoping for something different instead of what we are seeing play out? Well, every party in Nigeria is a reflection of the society itself We have a very diverse party, diverse memberships, like I said, diverse ideologies and thoughts and what is bubble to the surface is old God, new God, new truth, old truth, old commanders, new commanders coming together and not finding the middle ground to accommodate each other Again, like I said, it's a leadership challenge that I personally as a chairman of a state and as an individual will continue reaching out to all the parties to make sure that we can come together We didn't join the party so that we can divide ourselves, we came to party to unite the country So we have to unite ourselves and the way we unite ourselves is a signal to everybody that we can unite the country and that's one of the things that we're going to do I personally am making a promise on behalf of all the members of the party across the 36 states that I will do whatever I can do to reach out to everyone, agreed within and without to ensure that we are all back together and we are on the campaign trail Talking about the campaign, what is the structure of the ADC in Lagos state and if you must capture Lagos, what do you have on ground and how much, because I just finished talking about the issue of voter education and the onus that is on political parties to not just wait for INEC to do so or the NOA who's half past dead What is the ADC doing in terms of educating the people that they're targeting to be their voters? Well, on Friday this week on the 9th, we are unveiling our deputy to govorship candidates and she's a retired justice of our Lagos state government and together with Fonsha, who is the gubernatorial candidate it provides an opportunity to speak to the media provides us the opportunity to let everyone know what alternative means of leadership we are providing and we can provide in the state what transformational codes and ideas that we have but you see, we don't truly want to go the old route which is, you know, convincing people and offering them all kinds of carols and then having a stick at the back-hidden when you are tied to government we are going to use the calibre and the previous achievements of our candidates to sell what we can do Now, I already told you we have problems where we had gubernatorial primaries where we had representatives of all the local governments present basically what it means is that we have presence in every local government we have executives in every local government we are people who are passionate, capable and desiring to work we are not going to have stolen money or money passed down from stream sources what we are going to have is the heart and the mind of the people and a conversation, an engagement for the people that they would like to hear and I know fully well that negotiations, 6.5 million people are registered to vote less than 22% of them vote as the reason the others are not voting is because nobody is speaking to their needs that's what we plan to focus on Let's backtrack back to the issue of the national I'd like to ask, I know that you obviously are one of the favourite ones to not be suspended but back to the situation that has led to this suspension what is the relationship between the national chairman and your presidential candidate there's a tweet that was put out by your national chairman never have I seen in the history of politicking in Nigeria where a party's national chairman will be trolling its own presidential candidate I'd like to read some of the things from the tweet he said, presidential campaign office, zero campaign vehicles, zero, manifesto, none posters, none, handbills, none campaign council, none issues and think tank committee, none consultations, zero ADC, DNA compliance, Google, Dumebi, Kachiku truth is a stubborn stain, conscience the battle he says is God who do you care to respond to this because like I said there's no way for me to know that that's not a trolling account there's no way for me to know if that is an official account well that's the account of your national chairman for me to know I'm not saying that well I'm telling you that that's his account well if that is the case there's already one error I see there in the spelling of stop-on I would think that national chairman has got mad at English so that tells me that is that somebody doing it on his behalf or somebody he's just managing an account in the name of there are lots of accounts I've seen for everybody four, five, six accounts I don't know which is which I really don't read those tweets I would prefer to do that but don't you think that if that tweet didn't come from him it would come out to say that he didn't put that tweet out let me answer the question of favoured ones I am not favoured I do my work I'm in Lagos State as the chairman I do my work in Lagos State I am very busy I'm right in Palabar I'm not involved I've not attended any of the meetings for the past two months because I've been busy running my business I'm a businessman so naturally I'm not part of a lot of what's going on but I get reports and information from my excursion and then I take a position that is best for Lagos State and naturally best for the party at the national level so I'm not in a position let me put it this way I'm in a position to tell the chairman of the party if it's wrong and I'm in a position to tell the candidate if they're wrong but where my position is right now is that we can actually make peace because the issues they're bringing forth they're not substantial issues yet they are issues of oh this way I think you should run these are things that leadership is required to resolve they are not fundamental existential to the party itself they're not about you know about stolen government money they're not about you know corruption cases that you know make people are really worried about they're just about this is the way you should do it I don't think this is the way this is the way you should do it I don't think this is the way we can resolve it with the right kind of leadership Lagos State plans to provide that leadership Interesting I like how you want to sit on the fence on this matter and I won't force you to get involved but then I would like to quickly ask everything that was listed on that tweet does your national leader or I mean your presidential candidate have all of that right now can you confirm to me that all of these things that were listed by the account the Twitter account of your national chairman are actually on ground and we can point to it There's no way for me to know But you're a chairman of the Lagos State party so you should have an idea if your presidential candidate does have a team does have a campaign plan you should know this because all of this will be run by you The presidential campaign is under the office of the National ADC The gubernatorial campaign is under the office of the state chairman My focus is on my candidates My focus is not on the presidential candidate So you're saying that the presidential candidate does not concern you whatever he does does not concern you nor your party And then he will let us know when it's ready for the campaign what we should do and we will do it So it may be that these things are available or they're not available and you cannot make a conclusion on the basis of tweets because it can be proven that there are billboards in some states or there are some things in some places that we don't know So you're saying that your national chairman could be lying and trying to make your presidential candidate look bad Well I'm curious to understand where you're going with this I would rather hear from him directly my dear Interesting Finally, why should Legotians vote for your governorship candidate? Why should Legotians even look in the direction of the ADC? Legos' date is 172 out of 170 cities in terms of development Our current status of implementing Legos is extremely high 66% of Legosians are living on the poverty line 20 million people are moving around in Legos' transportation is a crash We have a lot of issues in this state and we think that the method of the current leadership is snail speed and it's focusing on gratification of individuals rather than attacking the problem rather than facing the problems That's why I keep saying people are not voting People are not voting because they're not speaking to their problems and what we are planning to do with the ADC is that as soon as a campaign is released officially because you know you really can't campaign until you have been allowed to campaign We will begin to lecture and introduce those ideas and tell home meetings to their proper persons This is what we have compared to what is currently on the ground So we want to manage the process of transforming Legos from whatever good works that we have done in the past including military roles to five greater works that we are going to do as ADC Alright, well I want to say thank you George Ashiro is the ADC Legos State Chairman and he's been talking to us Thank you so much for being part of the conversation Thank you very much Alright, thank you Well that's it on the show tonight but before I go, I will give you my take Here's my take Now change is an essential and unavoidable part of life We all agree to this but while it can be scary to think of it is nevertheless the medicine required for the insanity of our politics For too long we have stagnated or we have been stagnated as a country choosing short-term gains that often feel very difficult to see We can complain about the uncaring nature of our politicians but are we ready for the work that needs that we need to bring change about What we need isn't more of the same transactional politics that involves compromise of our rights for the personal gains of our leaders It is time to look for transformational ideology from the candidates who wish to lead us It is better to break the system that does us no favours so as to start anew than for us to stay in the same kind of bad system for comfort of what we know The devil we know has had his chance It is time to try an angel that we don't know I am Mary Annacl Thank you for watching Have a good evening