Babachir Lawal set to join NDC

A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, may consider joining the Nigeria Democratic Congress ahead of the 2027 elections.

A close ally of the former SGF in ADC disclosed this to newsdiggers.com.

“Lawal won’t stay without being a party man as we go into the 2027 elections.  After his unpleasant experience with the ADC, I can tell you for free that his next port of call will be the NDC,” the source said.

Asked why Lawal will prefer NDC, the source swiftly replied:  “ Do you expect him to join APC? That is the last party of crop of people Lawal will want to be associated with. I think he will be more comfortable in NDC and I can assure you that he will announce this in days or weeks to come. He will only allow dust to settle on the exit from ADC.”

Lawal resigned his membership of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) on Monday, stating the party’s presidential candidate may be worse president than the incumbent President Bola Tinubu if elected.

The former SGF,  in a statement, alleged that the recently concluded party primaries were rigged in favour of a former vice president, Atiku Abubakar.

“I am exiting the ADC because its just concluded primaries were at all levels massively rigged in favour of Abubakar Atiku. I sense a conspiracy of silence, of which I want no part. Most members of the party are behaving as if this is the normal thing to do.

“Results were just written or rewritten to favour him and his coven. Even where they allowed some semblance of election to hold, the winners were simply replaced with members of his syndicate. In the real sense, it was a disgraceful charade,” the former SGF stated in a post on his Facebook page.

He explained that he took the decision because he did not intend to be part of a “rigging machine” in the 2027 general elections, and “cannot avoid doing so” if he remains in the party.

“For me, working for Atiku means giving Tinubu an automatic ticket to a second term, which gives me nightmares. I believe Tinubu might, comparatively speaking, end up a better Nigerian president than Atiku could ever be (as bad as Tinubu currently is and possibly could ever be). The choice in 2027, it seems, will be a Morton’s fork,” Lawal said.

He noted that he did not join the ADC to make Nigeria “progressively worse”.

The former SGF stated that he would be tweaking his plans for the future and consulting with like-minded colleagues on how to stop Atiku from winning the presidential election.

Atiku has yet to respond to the allegation by Lawal as of the time of filing the report.

However, the ADC said the former vice president secured 1,846,370 votes to defeat a former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, who polled 504,117 votes, while a businessman, Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, got 177,120 votes.

The ADC National Chairman, Senator David Mark, said that the party allowed a free contest and allowed the members to make their choice.

He said that though the exercise was not perfect, there was room for improvement.

Lawal, who served as SGF in the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, resigned his membership of the ruling All Progressives Congress in June, 2025.