Former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai has said that President Bola Tinubu’s chances of re-election in 2027 are so slim that “he will be lucky if he is third.”
“Tinubu can’t win. In fact, he will be lucky if he is third,” El-Rufai said Monday night on a live interview on Arise TV, dismissing the recent wave of defectors into the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as lacking real significance.
President Tinubu, who emerged winner of the fiercely contested February 25, 2023, presidential election, secured victory with 8.79 million votes, defeating former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who polled 6.98 million and 6.1 million votes respectively. The election saw Tinubu carry 12 states, including Lagos, Rivers, and Borno, but also suffer surprising defeats in strongholds such as his home state, Lagos.
Despite that 2023 win, El-Rufai argued that Tinubu’s administration has rapidly lost public confidence, particularly due to worsening insecurity and economic hardship.
“For the last 15 months, N100 billion is deducted from the Federation Account and sent to the security agencies. Why has there been no improvement? In 2024, over 2.2 million Nigerians were abducted, 615,000 were killed. Is Nigeria at war? These numbers are worse than the 8 years of Buhari—in just one year! This is data from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics. It is government data,” El-Rufai stated.
He alleged that these deductions—amounting to N1.5 trillion—were made without legislative approval.
“This is money taken from the Federation Account without appropriation by the National Assembly. So, the entire deduction and spending is unconstitutional. It is an impeachable offence. Where has that N1.5 trillion gone? Why is the security situation just getting worse? Why is this government asking communities to defend themselves?”
On political moves ahead of 2027, El-Rufai clarified that the opposition coalition, which includes figures such as Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, and Rabiu Kwankwaso, has not settled on the All Democratic Alliance (ADA) as its final platform, though an application for registration is currently before INEC.
“You don’t go to war with only one platform. A brand-new party has no legacy challenge; it however takes time,” he noted. “But the existing new parties have been infiltrated by the Tinubu administration.”
“We don’t believe that under Professor Mahmood Yakubu, INEC will register a new party. Yakubu isn’t Attahiru Jega, and Tinubu isn’t Jonathan. Those were the people in charge when APC was registered.”
The article was originally published on Politics Nigeria.
