The African Democratic Congress, ADC, has responded to the outburst of the Minister of Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike against its leaders.

During a media chat in Abuja on Wednesday, the FCT Minister took on the leaders of the newly formed coalition, such as Chibuike Amaechi, David Mark, Aminu Tambuwal, Haji Sirika, among others.

According to Wike, that set of people had been in government for a long time but could not do anything to help the ordinary people, but were now saying they wanted to save the country.

Wike believed that the government of President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress, APC, which he currently serves, were doing enough, despite challenges to lift Nigerians out of the current economic realities.

He said that most of the people in the coalition lacked the moral right to form an alliance against a working government when they had opportunities to do more.

But in a statement signed by Mal. Bolaji Abdullahi, the Spokesman of the Coalition Movement, the ADC, lambasted the FCT Minister who, according to them, had refused to pay teachers’ salaries but was commissioning elephant projects.

The ADC said that Wike’s behaviour is incompatible with the office of a Minister, adding that the Minister is now afraid because a coalition to take out the government he serves has successfully unveiled.

Abdullahi told Wike that the coalition was a product of failed promises by the Tinubu administration and the suffering of Nigerians, adding that had the FCT Minister and the current government kept their promises to the people, there would have been no need for a coalition.

“If minister Wike had paid the salaries of primary school teachers who have been on strike for several months and if he had not treated FCT workers with so much contempt, while he goes about commissioning white elephant projects running into billions of Naira, he would have had no need to be afraid of the coalition,” the statement added.

ADC agreed with Wike’s claim during the media chat that the coalition leaders are driven by grievances, but insisted that any grievances by its leaders were because of the way the Tinubu administration, which the former Rivers Governor serves, had driven the majority of Nigerians into poverty and misery.

“We are aggrieved to see children of the poor unable to get education because they would not pay their teachers’ salaries,” it added.

“We are aggrieved to watch the growing insecurity in the FCT that he superintends.

“We are aggrieved that Minister Wike has allowed himself to be used by the government he serves to destroy one of the most powerful political parties in Africa, the PDP.

“But it is rather too late in the day to cry. The coalition movement belongs to the Nigerian people who had been promised renewed hope, but have been served renewed hopelessness.

“Therefore, no amount of tirade against the leaders of the coalition could stem the tide of this popular movement,” he said.