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Former Labour Party vice-presidential candidate Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed has declared that none of President Bola Tinubu’s major challengers in the 2027 presidential election has the capacity to improve Nigeria.
Baba-Ahmed, who was Peter Obi’s running mate in the 2023 presidential election, made the assessment while speaking on the MicOn Podcast on Saturday.
Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is seeking re-election in 2027, while Obi of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) are among the prominent opposition figures expected to challenge him.
Baba-Ahmed, however, urged Tinubu to prepare to leave office at the end of his tenure, arguing that the president should not hand power to the politicians currently positioning themselves to succeed him.
“I will simply advise uncle (Tinubu) to please prepare to hand over and move away, but not to the people contesting against him,” he said.
“Because none of them will improve Nigeria. All those people contesting against him too were all in bed together at some point or another including Peter Obi. At some point, he was in PDP.”
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The former lawmaker said his political position was centred on what he described as a “new Nigeria”, insisting that his political history distinguished him from other leading contenders because he had never belonged to a ruling party.
“Tell me one politician who has never been in a ruling party. I’m the one. Have I ever been in a ruling party?” he said.
Baba-Ahmed explained that although he was once a member of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), he resigned before the party merged with others to form the APC. “I have never been in a ruling party. When I was in CPC, it was a little opposition party,” he said. “I never had an APC membership card.”
He also questioned Atiku’s criticism of Tinubu over the president’s controversial records in the United States, arguing that the former vice-president had not always pursued the issue with the same intensity. Baba-Ahmed maintained that Tinubu had been given an opportunity to govern but should not seek to remain in power beyond two terms.
“All he did in three years was to destroy political parties,” Baba-Ahmed said.
