Atiku wasting his time trying to probe Tinubu’s past –Tokunbo Pearse

•President ‘ll get Osun treatment in 2027

Convener of Reset Lagos Peoples Democratic Party, Dr Adetokunbo Pearse, has said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should be happy that people are trying to focus on his alleged drug past rather than focusing on what he termed his abysmal performance as president.

In an interview with VINCENT KALU, Pearse, who is also the Lagos State 2027 governorship candidate of the Turaki faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said he was still expecting the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to upload former President Goodluck Jonathan as the PDP presidential candidate. He expressed optimism that Jonathan would win 2027 poll even if his name gets on the ballot a few weeks to the election.

What should be the campaign issues for the 2027 elections?

The issues normally should be an investigation of how government has worked for the people in the past three years and what the candidates will bring to the table to improve the quality of life for the people of Nigeria, and to let the citizens and the voters know how they will do better than the current government in the area of security, our economy, and in democracy, that is to say, the respect for the rule of law and tolerance for opposition. These are what we should be talking about now in every campaign.

If what you have highlighted are supposed to be the main issues, why should people be talking about President Bola Tinubu’s past in respect of reopening his alleged drug matter in the US, which some people say is a distraction?

I agree entirely that it is a distraction, and Tinubu himself will be happy that people are focusing on his alleged drug past, instead of focusing on telling the people what they would do differently, and his abysmal performance as president.

However, the reason opponents of Tinubu and people who are competing to be the president of Nigeria are concerned about the president’s past is because of the question of integrity.

A politician, or even a father or the head of a company, your character counts. If you have been a drug baron, or you are threatened by international law to go to jail; all of these of course are of concern, but they should not be the most important issues. However, they’re certainly relevant when you are discussing leadership in a country.

Presidential candidate of the Action Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar has gone to court asking the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to disqualify Tinubu on the ground of certificate forgery. What is your position on this?

Atiku is wasting his time the way he did in 2023. Remember that this issue of Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s corruption and illegal activities, as an alleged drug baron, money launderer and so on, is not new. The late social critic and lawyer, tried everything possible to deregister Tinubu because of his academic qualifications and identity and so on, but it did not work.  The man became a senator, he became a governor, and later president.

I don’t know why Atiku is wasting so much time, energy and money on this. If Tinubu wasn’t disqualified on all those attempts to rule, to be in leadership position, why does Atiku think that it could happen now?

There must be a reason the American government is not releasing the credentials of Tinubu; his legal issues. Don’t forget that this is not new. When Tinubu was a nobody in America, they didn’t release it, when he ran for governor, they did not release it. The reason is not because Tinubu is powerful or the rumours going on now that he bribed the American government. That’s total nonsense; it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t work like that in America. Do you know how much I know the system there? I worked there for over 20 years, not as a student, but as an adult working; teaching in the university system. I was in politics and even running for congress in America in 2024.

So, I know how the system works. There must be a reason beyond Tinubu; why they are not releasing his drug case. When you are a drug dealer and you have been involved in money laundering, the money you are laundering is in the billions and it’s not your money, but somebody else’s money was being laundered by Tinubu and that person is untouchable or those persons either in Nigeria or in America or both are untouchable, for which reason the American government is not likely to release anything they didn’t release 30 years ago. So, Atiku is wasting his time, and this is how he will lose the election again if he is not careful.

Most Nigerians aren’t thinking that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) still exists. What is your stand on this?

I don’t blame Nigerians if they think that way because we have not been put on the INEC ballot, and that is the only thing that is keeping us back now. The PDP is as strong as ever. What Wike is doing is a terrible distraction; it is a deception because people are now confused, they think there is no other PDP except the Wike PDP.

He is not even a member of the party, but just parading himself as such. Don’t forget that he was expelled from the party, and his structure, Anyanwu and Co. They were suspended on November 1, 2025, and on November 15, 2025, they were expelled from the party. The party is alive and well outside of INEC, in the community.

As we speak now, PDP is the only party that is stronger than APC because it has structures everywhere. When we say ‘structure’, we mean people, ward level, about 10 ward level officers, LG officers in every local government of Nigeria. For instance, all the LGA chairmen in Lagos, are in a ceremony now in Abuja. The point I’m making is that the PDP is alive. Guess what is going to happen; as it happened in Osun State about four weeks ago, where the PDP bona fide governorship candidate is under the leadership of Dr Kabiru Turaki, the authentic national chairman of the party that was registered with INEC in 1998; that is the PDP.

Whereas, it is Wike that is actually making all this noise now. The Turaki PDP was the one that was put on the ballot at the last minute in Osun State. Unfortunately, our governorship candidate thought that he wasn’t going to be on the ballot, as many Nigerians are thinking now and so didn’t bother to campaign. So, at the last minute, he found himself on the ballot. 

Our leader, Dr Turaki, has told us that we are all going to be on the ballot; that is to say our structure from the presidential candidate, Goodluck Jonathan, to all the senators, governors. I’m the bona fide governorship candidate of the PDP in Lagos State, but as of now, the Wike’s candidate, one Deji Doherty is on INEC record. He is among the people that have been expelled from the party, who are now recognised by the electoral umpire. That is INEC’s plan to deregulate the opposition parties, particularly the PDP that they feared the most. But they’re doing something wrong.

Every opposition political party is under threat from INEC, they want to hold everybody back, tie our hands and let APC stroll in as the only party that is going to win the election. It is not going to happen.

What is the Turaki faction waiting for to take charge? Is the Supreme Court?

We are just waiting for the INEC to do the right thing to put us on the ballot. INEC will do it because they just did it in Osun, the way they did it at the last minute. That is what is going on. There is no need to go to court anymore, we have got judgement from high court in April, 2026. Then, on the 30th of April this year, the certified copy of Supreme Court judgement and the Appeal Court of June 6, this year, all vindicated us and said that the Turaki led PDP is the authentic PDP, and that Anyanwu and Wike have been expelled from the party, but it is only INEC that has decided not to carry out the judgement of the court. We are waiting for INEC to do the right thing, and we know that the electoral umpire will do it just as they did it in Osun at the last minute.

We know that so long as we appear on the ballot, and Goodluck Jonathan appears on the ballot a few days to the election, he will win the election hands down and myself appearing on the ballot two days before the election, I will win the governorship in Lagos because my opponent is very weak.

The opposition parties are thinking of forming a formidable front to defeat APC, what is your stand on this?

It’s a good exercise; it’s a good idea. I was a member of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) in 2017 and 2018, but when all those parties got together, the actualisation and the implementation is what I find difficult to see any headway.

You know what APC did to take over the government from the PDP? Buhari’s party and Tinubu’s party came together mainly and formed one party. Tinubu was smart, he stepped down for Buhari, and allowed Buhari to go. If all these people meet now, Obi, Atiku, Makinde, and others decide to step down for the person that is the strongest, which in my opinion is Jonathan, the game is over for Tinubu. If Jonathan is with them as PDP (I’m a member of the Strategy Committee with the G-100 to formulate this plan, working on the side representing PDP); if they are able to step down for him, who is evidently the strongest candidate of all of them, then, there will be no problem. If that happens, Tinubu is gone. However, we see how it is going to actualise, but that is the plan.

Makinde has left the PDP for the Allied Peoples’ Movement (APM). Why do you still hope that PDP, like the phoenix, will rise and become stronger?

I’m of the opinion that you understand the situation that is going on now. It is a complex and an unusual situation. We have never been in a situation like this before, but guess what. I don’t know if there’s anything you can call APM per se. Everybody in APM, who has taken up positions in that party from governor to state Assembly; everywhere, are members of the PDP.

The issue is when the election comes, who are they going to vote for?

That’s what I’m concerned about. I’m sure that if we are on the ballot, and the head of our ticket at the national level, Goodluck Jonathan, is on the ballot, that is the person all the so-called APM people are going to vote for. Don’t forget that APM is not the only problem that PDP has. Many of our members are now candidates for governor, for senate and so on in ADC and NDC; all of them are from PDP.

What I’m getting from members who have gone to those other parties is that they are with us if we are on the ballot because the reason they went to the other parties is because they were not sure that PDP was going to be on the ballot. This is exactly what Tinubu and INEC have planned.

However, they have assured us that if at the last minute we get on the ballot, we will win the election because they are going to vote for us.

Once they see Goodluck Jonathan on the ballot at the presidential level, they will go out to vote for him whether they are in the NDC, ADC or APM. By the way, it is only the first and second levels of leadership that have gone to those political parties; the membership themselves are intact; all of them are still in PDP. That is the strange situation we are in now.

If Tinubu thinks that he can win this election, he is deceiving himself. What happened in Osun, is worst case scenario, that is to say, if Jonathan is not on the ballot and myself is not on the ballot in Lagos State, whoever that’s on the ballot, whether it is Obi or Atiku, all of us now will vote for one of those two people, and we will make sure that Tinubu doesn’t get back because of his performance. He has been a disaster everywhere. In fact, he is an existential threat to the existence of Nigeria because of his performance. He divided the people, he has ignored security, no integrity; we are a laughing stock all over the world. We are borrowing money right, left and centre and we are not spending it on developing the country.

Tinubu has borrowed money and has not funded the budget; in other words, 2024 and 2025 budgets are not even being implemented, and so there is no development.

If the m\Minister of Health, who is supposed to get N500 billion to operate and provide health for Nigerians is getting N5 billion, instead of N500 billion, that means that nothing is going on in the health sector. It is the same thing in the Works, Education, Transportation and other sectors. If you are not funding the budget, it is like the head of the family, who is not giving money for food in the house. You are destroying people and the political family, which is what Tinubu has done. He must go; he will go whether he likes it or not. The people will vote him out in 2027.

You emphasised that Tinubu won’t be re-elected, are you not intimidated or afraid of his campaign council, from top to down? Will any of the opposition candidates withstand him?

I’m not afraid. I’m not intimidated and I’m not even worried about him. It is not the campaign council that matters. How many people are in the campaign council, and how many votes do they have. The campaign council is just about show; it is just to give the impression that he is strong. He is not strong.

The people are in their millions. About 90 million people registered to vote in 2023, and only 28 million voted because they said there was no reason to vote as they were tired, but now, they have seen that if they don’t vote, disaster would come upon them again.  So, they are going to vote. For the over 90 million people who have registered to vote this time around, I’m of the opinion that about 48 million may vote. If 48 or 50 million voted, then Tinubu is gone, no matter how many governors he has.

Look at what happened in Osun. What did they not do? Did they not try to intimidate and scare people away with all the power houses, ministers, legislators and everybody going there, spending more than N100 billion on one state to win the governorship election, and they still lost by about 66,000 votes. The same thing is going to happen at the national level.

There are issues of threats and attacks here and there. Some people in the ruling party have reportedly made threatening statements against those that would not vote for APC. What do you make of all these threats?

Evidently, we’re experiencing a political party in power that is so desperate, and so determined to destroy, and has no concern; no compassion for the people.

To them, election, as Tinubu has said, is war, and anything in politics is fair. He doesn’t even understand that there are laws and regulations guiding a war. Prisoners of war, for instance, have to be treated in a certain way. Officers in the military have to be treated in a certain way. The citizens you captured in war have to be treated in a certain way. So, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Co, trying to threaten people and force them to vote for him, again, I refer to Osun State.

There was nothing they didn’t do in Osun; many people died in that election and yet the people voted. Some of them took the money they gave them to vote for APC, and they didn’t. There was nothing they didn’t try in Osun, and they are going to try it again in 2027, and they are going to fail as they failed in Osun. That is what is going to happen in 2027.