Dele Alake’s statement, issued at dawn today, is a desperate and hollow smokescreen from a campaign terrified of its own record.

He accuses Atiku Abubakar and the African Democratic Congress (ADC) of a “devious plan,” AI manipulation and deepfakes, yet offers no evidence linking them to the alleged letter or any fabricated video. This is the All Progressives Congress’ familiar script: make a reckless accusation, dress it up as certainty, then hope Nigerians stop asking questions. Alake should produce the evidence: names, dates and forensic findings. Until then, his “fake news alert” is an empty political stunt.

No conspiracy is needed to expose the APC. Its own failures are visible in every market, filling station and household. Petrol is around ₦1,400 a litre; diesel has topped ₦2,000; food inflation remains close to 20 per cent. More than half of Nigerians were living in poverty last year, according to the World Bank estimate reported by Reuters. These are the brutal consequences of an incompetent, callous and ruinous economic course. They are not fake news.

Bola calls the vehicle near an APC billboard a “routine patrol.” Nigerians can still ask why a campaign billboard needed protection. He can dismiss the images, but he cannot dismiss the reports of supporters brought in from distant states and left sleeping on Kaduna’s streets. More troubling still, reports have emerged of an accident involving APC supporters travelling from Sokoto and also from Abuja to the rally. Details remain unconfirmed, and the APC must urgently account for the passengers’ safety.

Making citizens endure long, hazardous journeys and sleep outdoors simply to create rally optics is political exploitation, not leadership. The APC cares more about the appearance of a crowd than the safety and dignity of the people it transports.

Perhaps this also explains why Tinubu is campaigning in only 12 states. The same supporters must be moved from one rally to the next, along roads his government has left in disrepair. Those journeys will consume meaningful time. Tinubu knows what happens if the crowd fails to reach the next destination: he may be left addressing empty seats—or, as the saying goes, talking to the birds. A campaign that must transport its audience from state to state cannot pass off that audience as spontaneous nationwide support.

You can hire buses, assemble a crowd and plaster the streets with billboards. You cannot hire consent. Nigerians have endured the APC’s punishing prices, shrinking incomes and broken promises. No parade, press statement or insult can conceal their growing rejection of this record.

The APC’s failures are sweeping, painful and indefensible. Its boastful promises have collapsed into a miserable reality of expensive food, unaffordable transport and families forced to make do with less. Alake’s attack on Atiku will not reduce the cost of a meal by one naira.

The real desperados are those clinging to power while the country burns. At the polls, Nigerians will reject this discredited record and defeat the APC. No volume of propaganda can talk the party out of the reckoning it has earned.
Bola made life expensive; Atiku will make Nigeria affordable again!

Phrank Shaibu
Director of Strategic Communication
ADC Presidential Campaign Council
24 October 2026