Former President late Muhammadu Buhari resisted pressure from political allies who wanted President Bola Tinubu to succeed him because he believed Tinubu’s presidency would be detrimental to Nigeria, the National Chairman of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, has claimed.
Baba-Ahmed made the allegation at a summit organised by the Northern Elders Forum, where he accused Tinubu’s administration of taking the country to an unprecedented low and urged Nigerians to reject any attempt to prioritise the president’s second-term ambition over the national interest.
Speaking in a video of the event published on Symfoni’s YouTube channel, the PRP chairman said Nigerians should have questioned Tinubu’s presidential ambition when he adopted the slogan “Emilokan” during the build-up to the 2023 general election.
The Yoruba expression, which means “it is my turn”, became one of the defining slogans of Tinubu’s campaign.
“Even Buhari saw Tinubu as bad news for this country. In fairness to him, he is not around him. Buhari resisted some people who insisted it had to be Tinubu,” he said.
Baba-Ahmed questioned the appropriateness of presenting the presidency as an entitlement, arguing that leading a country with an estimated population of 250 million should not be framed in terms of an individual’s turn to occupy the office.
“Nigerians ought to have known there was something wrong the day Tinubu said ‘It’s my turn’. Maybe we missed it,” he said.
“We have a presidency of a country of 250 million people. My turn? To do what? To become president”, he added.
The PRP chairman also accused the Tinubu administration of worsening the country’s condition since assuming office, insisting that Nigeria could not afford further deterioration.
“Now we are being depressed for having a president for three and a half years. He has dragged the country as low as it can go. And it has to stop him. We cannot go below, beyond where we are,” Baba-Ahmed said.
He further alleged that the president was more concerned about fulfilling his political ambition than addressing the challenges facing Nigerians.
“We will not allow a president to fulfil an ambition that one individual alone can wreak on his country, just to prove that he has the power and the money to do so,” he said.
“We are at the bottom. There is no way to go anymore. Every index of failure shows in this administration”, he added.
Baba-Ahmed also criticised Tinubu for allegedly failing to make a personal appeal to Nigerians for another term in office, claiming that the president had instead depended on political associates to promote his re-election bid.
He equally faulted governors in the North for failing to adequately communicate the region’s economic difficulties and growing dissatisfaction to the president.
Despite his criticism of the administration, the PRP chairman expressed optimism that Nigeria would overcome its current challenges, citing the resilience the country had demonstrated during previous crises.
“We are very resilient people. We have seen crises bigger than this, and we survived them. We survived it, and we will survive this one.
“We will survive the four years of abuse, neglect, and plunder that Tinubu has caused because Nigeria has to survive for our children and their children”, he said.
### 2027: Opposition Parties Working To Unite Against Tinubu
On the 2027 presidential election, Baba-Ahmed said opposition parties were making efforts to form a coalition capable of defeating Tinubu at the polls.
He described the proposed alliance as a serious attempt by political actors to set aside their differences and build a common front against the president.
“What we have seen is an incredible willingness for politicians to come together and say, let’s put aside some of our differences and see if we can actually create a momentum strong enough to remove this Tinubu,” he said.
Baba-Ahmed said the coalition would field a candidate to challenge Tinubu, urging Nigerians who oppose the president’s re-election to support whoever emerges as its flag-bearer.
The proposed alliance comes amid growing efforts by opposition figures to consolidate their political strength ahead of the 2027 general election.
However, the coalition faces the challenge of reconciling competing interests among its members and agreeing on a consensus candidate capable of mounting a credible challenge to the incumbent.
Tinubu won the 2023 presidential election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), succeeding Buhari, who completed eight years in office under the party.
Since assuming office, Tinubu has introduced major economic reforms, including the removal of the petrol subsidy and changes to foreign-exchange management.
The administration has defended the measures as necessary to stabilise public finances and reform the economy. However, the reforms have coincided with a significant increase in the cost of living, triggering widespread concerns about inflation, household purchasing power and economic hardship.
