•Hakeem Baba-Ahmed and Tinubu
The National Chairman of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, has said President Bola Tinubu will lose the 2027 presidential election before 4 p.m. if the exercise is free, fair and credible.
Baba-Ahmed spoke during an interview on Channels Television last night.
“If it is a credible, free and fair election, I assure you Tinubu will lose. I won’t say before 12 noon, maybe before 4 p.m. in the evening,” he said.
Baba-Ahmed said he hoped the election would be free, fair and credible, warning that failure to ensure this could pose a serious threat to Nigeria’s democracy.
“If it is not (credible), I foresee a very serious threat to Nigeria’s democracy. There are people out there, millions who are very, very angry,” the party leader said. “They desperately want an opportunity to express their anger through the ballot, and it is very important that we allow them to exercise that right. Play around that, and you are playing around with the future of this country.”
While the PRP chairman believes the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) will be dislodged from power in 2027, he acknowledged that achieving this would not be easy.
Referencing the recent Osun State governorship election, where Governor Ademola Adeleke was re-elected on the platform of the Accord Party after defeating the APC candidate, Baba-Ahmed said a similar outcome could be replicated at the national level in 2027.
Asked what makes defeating Tinubu difficult, Baba-Ahmed said the APC had become a powerful political force that, in his view, was consuming both itself and its opponents.
He argued that Tinubu wields enormous powers, including significant influence over the National Assembly, and has secured the backing of about 31 governors and roughly 75 per cent of lawmakers through his party.
Despite this level of political control, Baba-Ahmed said the president still appears to feel that he does not have enough power.
“APC is a monster eating itself up and eating everybody up. You have a party that has a president that is quite possibly the most powerful president who has been given by the people around him the most awesome powers to do anything he wants to do, including the National Assembly.
“You have the president who believes he must have all the power around him, and he appears to have garnered 31 governors and quite possibly about 75 per cent of the national assembly around him in his party, and he is still living in fear that it is not enough,” he said.
He also faulted Tinubu for recently defending the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) against allegations of bias, arguing that nobody should praise the electoral body until it conducts an election in which the president is involved.
