2027: Atiku, Obi, Duke, Makinde no match for Tinubu, APC declares

*Says OBJ/Atiku spent N300b on non-existent roads *’Ex-VP wants to scrap NELFUND while charging millions in own varsity’

By Omeiza Ajayi, ABUJA

The ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, has declared that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Mr. Peter Obi, Mr. Donald Duke and Engr Seyi Makinde are no match for President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 election.

The quartet are the presidential candidates of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, People’s Redemption Party, PRP, and the Allied People’s Movement, APM.

National Chairman of the party, Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, made the declaration, yesterday, while receiving the Forum of APC House of Representatives Aspirants, led by Danjuma Mohammed, at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja.

“No political party, as it stands today, has a more credible candidate than President Bola Tinubu. We have facts, we have records that if we put them vis-à-vis any other candidate that is on this ballot, none matches our own candidate. None. I mean, none,” he declared.

He said the opposition could not stand a side-by-side comparison of records. “Show the scorecard of other presidents, of other candidates, and then we now put them side by side Mr President; none of them comes close to matching Mr President, even in terms of building institutions.”

Obasanjo/Atiku

On roads, Yilwatda said Nigerians could not point to anything built under the N300 billion road budget released when Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was president and Atiku was in his government.

“We were here live. When the president gave road projects of over N300 billion, when another person was the Minister of Works, we couldn’t find even the road that was patched with that budget. We are struggling to find the roads.

“Show me one road, a span of 500 kilometres, that was constructed with that money, just one. You can’t find it, but I can pinpoint many roads across the country that were constructed just in three years”, he stated.

Yilwatda then listed what he said the Tinubu administration had completed or has under construction. “From Abuja to Kaduna is over 441 kilometres. From Abuja to Kaduna to Kano, it is under construction. We are almost near completion.”

Of the Trans-Sahara Superhighway, he said: “We’ve done almost 30, 40 per cent of that one. Tell me which president has done that much? And that span alone is over 1,400 kilometres of roads. Just that span alone, before you take the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.”

He also pointed to the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline project. “That same gas will be used for fertiliser. That same gas will be used for CNG. It will take gas to homes, fire turbines for electricity to power homes, power industries, and you tell me that Mr President has not done well?”

The APC chairman also criticised Atiku’s position on the student loan scheme, which he said he would scrap, if elected.

“I just listened to one of the spokespersons of the ADC, your former party, who was saying, how can President Tinubu be giving N20,000 to students?”

He said such critics were out of touch with ordinary Nigerians. “They don’t know the value of N20,000 to an ordinary man on the streets.”

Yilwatda, a former university lecturer, said he knows the cost of school fees first-hand. “I know how many students dropped out of school because they could not afford school fees. I taught them.”

He told the story of a student who saved part of the N20,000 monthly upkeep, bought a second-hand refrigerator and began selling iced fish to schoolmates. “That’s how that N20,000 is building homes, and somebody is saying that when he comes, the first thing he would do is scrap it.”

Then he turned on the critics’ own institutions. 

“But they all have their universities. They charge, you know, in millions of naira, but they come back and say that the money we are giving the students is too small.

“Meanwhile, even students in those institutions have access to student loans. So, we are supporting their own universities too.”

Earlier, Mohammed told the APC leadership that the forum was formed in 2022 under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP “with the primary objective of uniting aspirants who participated in the party’s primary election but did not emerge as candidates.”

He said its mission then was to mobilise support for Atiku and his running mate, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa. “Following subsequent political developments, many members of our forum have joined the APC.”

Mohammed said members were “united by our resolve to support the direction of President Bola Tinubu, and his Vice President, Kashim Shettima, for a second term.”

The forum, he said, draws members “from across the 360 federal constituencies in Nigeria.” 

He added: “We are not seeking to establish a parallel structure or undermine existing party organs.”

He asked the party to approve and support “the production and nationwide distribution of these important campaign materials in major local languages across multiple media formats”, and proposed a political conference in each of the six geopolitical zones to disseminate them.

“We finally believe that united aspirants constitute a formidable political force,” Mohammed said.

Yilwatda assured the group of a place in the party’s machinery. “We have a directorate that works with you already, and I will link you up with the directorate so that the work will start.”

He also drew on his own electoral setbacks to urge the aspirants not to lose heart. “I contested for governorship election on the Plateau. I lost. I went to the Supreme Court. I lost at the Supreme Court. When I returned back to serve the party, I never grumbled.”

On the party’s strength, he said: “Our party has over 261,000 Exco. Just executive members of the party, not to talk of members. We want to convert those numbers to victory, and we need to form that partnership. Partner with us, work with us, and victory is sure for all of us.”