Breaking: Babachir Lawal Dumps ADC, Gives Reason as He Launches Scathing Attack on Atiku
- Babachir Lawal exited the ADC, condemning presidential primaries as 'massively rigged' in favour of Atiku Abubakar
- Lawal accuses the former vice president and his allies of vote-rigging and manipulation ahead of the 2027 general elections in Nigeria
- The opposition figure predicted that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's political structure would outperform Atiku's in future electoral battles
Legit.ng journalist Ridwan Adeola Yusuf has over nine years of experience covering politics, elections, public affairs, and governance in Nigeria and Africa.
Yola, Adamawa state - Ahead of the 2027 elections, Babachir Lawal, former secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), on Monday, June 1, 2026, announced his exit from the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
Legit.ng reports that in a post on his verified Facebook page, Lawal alleged that the recent ADC presidential primary election was “massively rigged” in favour of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
Source: Twitter
Lawal accuses Atiku of rigging
Lawal, 71, had only spent 10 months in the ADC, a party he joined from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Recall that Atiku Abubakar defeated former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, and businessman Mohammed Hayatu-Deen to clinch the ADC presidential ticket for the 2027 general elections.
Lawal, a former appointee of the late ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, claimed that Atiku and his allies engaged in electoral fraud and result manipulation, while predicting that they would ultimately be “out-rigged and beaten” by what he described as President Bola Tinubu’s “superior political structure.”
Lawal's statement, sighted by Legit.ng, read:
"I am exiting the ADC because its just concluded primaries were at all levels massively rigged in favour Kachalla Abubakar Atiku. I sense a conspiracy of silence of which i want no part of 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."
He continued:
"I am doing so because I do not intend to be part of Kachalla Atiku's rigging machine in the 2027 general elections and I cannot avoid doing so if I remain in the party."
Source: UGC
Lawal flays Atiku, Tinubu, speaks on future
On his political future, he said he would be "consulting with like-minded colleagues on how to stop this incompetent octogenerian from coming close to the presidential office, I will in the meantimd retire to my village farm from where I will be watching Kachalla Atiku and his band of wicked vote riggers and result manipulators mercilessly out-rigged and beaten to pulp by Tinubu’s ruthless and superior rigging machine."
Lawal’s full statement can be read in a post on X here.
Cracks within the ADC opposition platform give Tinubu a familiar edge. The veteran political dealmaker enjoys the advantages of incumbency and a deeply entrenched party machine.
Nigeria has seen an incumbent president lose only once, in 2015, when Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat to the late Buhari, Lawal's former boss.
Read more on ADC:
- 2027 election: ADC responds to rumours INEC refused to recognise David Mark's new leadership
- 2027 election: Did Senator Abdulaziz Yar'Adua dump APC for ADC? Lawmaker speaks out
- 2027 election: ADC speaks as Rabiu Kwankwaso reportedly considers joining party
ADC's Bala makes fresh demand
Earlier, Legit.ng reported that Nafiu Bala-Gombe, a former deputy national chairman of the ADC, asked the chief judge of the Federal High Court for a change of the judge handling a matter involving his party.
Bala-Gombe, who is laying claim to the party’s chairmanship seat, sought a transfer of his suit from Judge Emeka Nwite to another judge. This, he said, is to enable judicial impartiality.
Source: Legit.ng
