The lawmaker representing Abia South Senatorial District, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, has said it would be impossible for President Bola Tinubu to win re-election in the 2027 presidential election.
Abaribe, who claimed that the President never won the 2023 election, said the level of hardship Nigerians are currently facing has made them more determined to ensure that Tinubu does not return as president after 2027.
Reacting to suggestions that Tinubu has never lost an election, Abaribe, who appeared as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday, said, “I do not think so. Everybody loses elections, and you will see when the time comes. He will lose in 2027 because I know what Nigerians are feeling outside.”
He added, “Tinubu never won the 2023 election, and everybody knows it. But we said fine, he has been declared the winner, no problem. We acknowledge him as president, but we are going to meet him in the field, and I will see how he is going to cobble together what will make him win again.
“It won’t work because this time everybody will be ready. It will no longer be an announcement at 3 a.m. before people wake up in the morning. This time, people are ready, we are ready, and the masses are even more ready.”
The senator, who said the economy has collapsed under Tinubu and that the president has yet to solve the problem of insecurity, wondered where he would get the votes to win in 2027.
‘I’ll never defect to APC’
On the defection of some opposition leaders to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Abaribe vowed never to join the wave, saying he would be the last person to do so.
He said that rather than strengthening the APC as a party, the defections would deepen internal divisions and fuel leadership tussles.
“If there is anybody who is going to defect to the APC, I think I should be the very, very last one. By the time I defect, it would mean there are no parties left in Nigeria, including the APC,” he said.
“I have a very simple theory about defections. I think it is very good for us in the opposition that these defections are happening. All the APC is doing is absorbing all the problems it is going to face; they are right inside the party now. Ask yourself, in all the states where there are defections, what is going on there now?”
The lawmaker described the APC as a giant with feet of clay, saying the opposition would target its weak points during the election, leading to its collapse.
‘ADC not working for Atiku’
Abaribe, who reaffirmed his membership of the opposition coalition, said there is a consensus among opposition leaders to unite in order to dislodge the APC from power.
The coalition has adopted the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as the platform for the 2027 elections, but many have claimed the move is a strategy to enthrone Atiku Abubakar and compel all opposition members to support him.
However, Abaribe disagreed, saying the party has yet to release its guidelines and other arrangements ahead of the 2027 elections.