2027: None Can Fix Nigeria – Datti Rejects Obi and Atiku As Viable Alternatives To Tinubu

• Former Labour Party vice-presidential candidate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, has delivered a blunt verdict on the 2027 presidential race, saying none of President Bola Tinubu’s major challengers, including his former running mate, Peter Obi, and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, has the capacity to improve Nigeria.

• Baba-Ahmed urged Tinubu to prepare to leave office at the end of his tenure but warned against handing power to the politicians currently positioning themselves to defeat him, arguing that they have all, at various times, been associated with the political establishment responsible for Nigeria’s present condition.

• The former lawmaker specifically included Obi in his criticism despite their joint presidential bid in 2023, accusing the former Anambra State governor of previously belonging to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) when it was the ruling party.

• Baba-Ahmed also distanced himself from the major political establishment, insisting that he had never belonged to a ruling party and was advocating what he described as a “whole new Nigeria,” while accusing the Tinubu administration of destroying political parties during its first three years in office.

September 07, () — Former Labour Party (LP) vice-presidential candidate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, has rejected President Bola Tinubu’s leading challengers as credible alternatives to the incumbent in the 2027 presidential election, declaring that none of them can improve Nigeria.

Baba-Ahmed, who was the running mate to Peter Obi on the Labour Party ticket in the 2023 presidential election, said the major politicians seeking to unseat Tinubu had, at different times, been part of the same political establishment they now claim to oppose.

He made the remarks during an appearance on the MicOn Podcast, hosted by Seun Okinbaloye and published on Saturday.

Asked what advice he would give Tinubu about his leadership and the 2027 election, Baba-Ahmed said the President should prepare to leave office but should not hand over power to any of the politicians currently challenging him.

“I will simply advise uncle (Tinubu) to please prepare to hand over and move away, but not to the people contesting against him because none of them will improve Nigeria”, he said.

When the host sought clarification on whether he was referring to all the opposition candidates, Baba-Ahmed was emphatic.

“Tinubu should leave the stage. All those people contesting against him, too — they were all in bed together at some point or another”, he said.

Asked specifically whether the statement included Obi, his former political partner, Baba-Ahmed replied: “Including Peter Obi, I’m sorry to say”.

Obi Also In The Firing Line

Baba-Ahmed based his criticism of Obi largely on the latter’s political history, pointing to his previous membership of the PDP.

Obi was a member of the PDP before leaving the party and later emerging as the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election, where he ran alongside Baba-Ahmed.

For Baba-Ahmed, that political history disqualifies Obi from being presented as an entirely new alternative to the established political order.

He said he was campaigning for what he described as “a whole new Nigeria,” arguing that Nigerians should look beyond politicians who had previously operated within ruling-party structures.

“Tell me one politician who has never been in a ruling party. Tell me”, Baba-Ahmed said.

The former lawmaker was then reminded of his own political career, including his membership of the National Assembly and previous involvement with political parties.

He maintained that he had never belonged to a ruling party.

“I have never been in a ruling party. While I was in CPC, CPC was the leading opposition party, even above ANPP then”, he added.

Baba-Ahmed said he left the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) before its merger with other parties that eventually produced the All Progressives Congress (APC), which won the 2015 presidential election.

“When they merged with APC and came to power, you have my letter of resignation from the then, uh, APC because… even though I was, because I have never had a card, a membership card of APC. Never. I never had a membership card of APC”, he stated.

‘Tinubu Should Leave’

Despite his rejection of the opposition figures, Baba-Ahmed was equally critical of Tinubu and said the President should not seek to remain in power beyond his constitutionally permitted second term. He accused the administration of undermining the political system and claimed that one of its major outcomes had been the weakening of political parties.

“All he did in three years was to destroy political parties”, Baba-Ahmed alleged.

Baba-Ahmed also turned his attention to former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, another major figure in the 2027 opposition calculations.

He questioned Atiku’s criticism of Tinubu over controversies surrounding the President’s records in the United States, arguing that the former vice-president had not always raised the issue with the same intensity.