ADC: Trump’s Venezuela Action Lesson to Nigeria, Tinubu’s Silence Embarrassing

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

African Democratic Congress (ADC), has viewed the  action taken by the United States President, Donald Trump, to arrest and bring to trial President of Venezuela, Mr. Nicolas Maduro, and his wife as a timely warning and lessons to the Nigerian government in many respects.

The party also criticised the Nigerian government’s failure to react to the development as other countries and world leaders have done as an embarrassment to the country, which could only be explained by Tinubu’s personal fear that he might suffer the fate of the Venezuelan leader.

In a statement by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC said while the party supported the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations, the party believed that a  government that held its national laws in contempt and trampled on the rights of its citizens opened itself up for external interference.

The party noted that Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election was widely condemned and warned that authoritarian leaders and election riggers could no longer hide under sanctity of national borders to protect their stolen mandates.

ADC said it considered Saturday’s action by the US Government to arrest Maduro and his wife as a clear warning that sent a strong message to the  Nigerian government and any other government that lacked legitimacy.

The ADC said it supported the principles of sanctity of national sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs of another country as enshrined as enshrined in Articles 2(1) and 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, principles that underpinned global peace and order.

‘’We maintain that these international governance doctrines that were ordinarily designed to maintain global order should not be invoked to provide a safe haven for tyranny, electoral fraud, or the systematic denial  of a people’s right to freely choose their leaders.

‘’It is public knowledge that the  2024 Venezuela presidential elections were widely condemned as illegitimate and deeply flawed by nine governments across Latin America, the European Union, and international democratic institutions, all pointing to a process marked  by fraud, repression and  exclusion.

‘’Political opponents were barred from contesting, peaceful protests were met with violence, state institutions were weaponized against the very citizens they exist to serve. The net consequence of this has been mass migration at a scale that undermines regional stability,’’ the ADC spokesman said.