The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has attributed the absence of its presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar from the Tuesday’s Peace Accord to the failures of previous peace agreements to stop election-related violence and killings across the country.

Presidential candidates and national chairpersons of political parties participating in the 2027 general elections signed a national peace accord on Tuesday in Abuja as part of their commitment to peaceful, issue-based campaigns ahead of the start of electioneering.

While Mr Abubakar was absent from the event, President Bola Tinubu was represented by the secretary to the government of the federation, George Akume.

In a Channels TV interview on Friday, ADC spokesperson, Bolaji Abdullahi, said, “We’ve been signing this thing year in, year out; every election cycle, we sign in support of this commitment. Things still happen; people still get killed, harassed, like in the case of Osun, but we don’t hear the Peace Committee say anything.”

Citing the violence in the just-concluded Osun governorship election, Mr Abdullahi accused the Peace Accord committee of failure to respond publicly to comments by Senator Francis Fadahunsi threatening violence.

He added, “When Senator Fadahunsi said that they should go out and kill people, we didn’t hear the Peace Committee say anything. So, what is the point? So, it’s our (ADC) way of saying no.”

The politician noted that the ADC deliberately stayed away from the peace agreement to pressure the committee to make the peace process more effective and ensure that political actors were held to account for making statements capable of inflaming the polity.

“If we want to be part of this, if you want to be taking us seriously, then you need to up your game,” Mr Abdullahi added.