We’ll meet in 2027, presidency tells Atiku, El-Rufai, Obi, others

The Presidency has declared that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is ready for any challenge from opposition leaders during the 2027 general election.

It faulted comments by the political opponents against the administration, describing them as “distracting” and “Machiavellian.”

The Presidency also advised the leading opposition figures and other critics – Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Mr. Peter Obi, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai and Mr. Rotimi Amaechi – to wait till the next poll before they flex muscles.

According to them, the activities of the opposition leaders are premature.

“This is 2025, not 2027. Let those who want to test their popularity with Nigerians wait for the next election,” Sunday Dare, Special Adviser on Media and Public Communications, said.

Also peeping into the future, former House of Representatives Speaker and ex-governor of Katsina State, Bello Masari, said there was no alternative to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Former member of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party, Salihu Lukman, said some of the opposition figures lacked the quality of leadership, urging them to drop their presidential ambitions.

He said: “Based on their records, they exhibit intolerant dispositions and poor relationships on account of which they have mismanaged their transitions and are today hardly in control of political structures in their states.”

At a two-day democracy conference in Abuja, Atiku, 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Obi, and former Katsina State Governor El-Rufai fired salvos at the Federal Government, saying that it was not living to expectation.

Atiku alleged that the ruling party had doled out N50 million as a bribe to each of the opposition parties to disorganise and silence their leadership.

El-Rufai, a chieftain of APC, alleged a lack of internal democracy and active party structures within the ruling party.

“I no longer recognise the APC. No party organ has met in two years—no caucus, no NEC, nothing. You don’t even know if it is a one-man show; it’s a zero-man show,” he said.

Amaechi called for “brutal force” to take from President Tinubu in 2027, adding that if he had been president, he would have run the country differently.

Taking an exception to the comments, Dare, in a post on his verified X handle, urged Nigerians to scrutinise the antecedents of these politicians.

He described the attacks on the Tinubu Administration as predictable attempts to stir controversy while the President was away in Tanzania addressing Nigeria’s energy challenges.

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