By Opeyemi Adelakun
As political alignments ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 presidential election gather momentum, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed has argued that simply replacing President Bola Tinubu with another familiar political figure may not deliver the change Nigerians desire.
Baba-Ahmed, the Labour Party’s 2023 vice-presidential candidate, made the assessment while speaking on the MicOn Podcast on Saturday.
The former lawmaker, who contested alongside Peter Obi in the 2023 presidential election, said several politicians now presenting themselves as alternatives to Tinubu had previously operated within Nigeria’s established political structure.
He therefore advised Tinubu to prepare to leave office at the end of his constitutionally allowed tenure, but cautioned that the President’s eventual successor should not necessarily come from the group of 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,” Baba-Ahmed said.
Explaining his position, he argued that the major opposition figures did not represent a sufficiently different political direction to guarantee an improvement in the country.
“Because none of them will improve Nigeria,” he said.
Baba-Ahmed pointed to Peter Obi’s previous association with the Peoples Democratic Party as part of his argument that many of the leading political actors had, at different times, been connected to the establishment they now criticise.
The former lawmaker also presented his own political history as evidence that he was different from the leading politicians in the 2027 race.
He said his political career had not included membership of a ruling party, describing this as an important distinction in his argument for what he called a “new Nigeria.”
“Tell me one politician who has never been in a ruling party. I’m the one,” Baba-Ahmed said.
Baba-Ahmed explained that although he was once a member of the Congress for Progressive Change, he left before the party merged with others to form the All Progressives Congress.
“When I was in CPC, it was a little opposition party,” he said, insisting that he never obtained an APC membership card.
Baba-Ahmed also questioned former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar’s criticism of Tinubu, particularly regarding controversies surrounding the President’s records in the United States.
He suggested that Atiku had not always pursued the issue with the same intensity.
On Tinubu’s administration, Baba-Ahmed said the President had been given an opportunity to govern Nigeria but should not seek to extend his stay beyond the constitutionally permitted two terms.
He further accused Tinubu of damaging the country’s political party system during his first term.
“All he did in three years was to destroy political parties,” Baba-Ahmed alleged.
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