The opposition African Democratic Congress (ADC) has fired back at the Presidency over its recent assertion that President Bola Tinubu has no plans to extend his tenure beyond 2031, describing the remarks as presumptuous and patently undemocratic.
In a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC asserted that the President’s mandate ends in 2027, and the party was confident that Nigerians will not wish to extend his tenure by a single day.
The party added that given the spate of banditry and killings raging across the country, the widespread hunger and suffering, the punitive taxes, the flagrant abuse of power at a scale never seen before, the President should be preparing to leave in 2027.
It added that any plan to stay in office beyond that date would indeed be a confirmation that this government was incapable of reading the room.
The statement read, “The presidency’s desperate response to the recent remarks by former governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, that President Bola Tinubu has plans to be a life President only serves to confirm what Nigerians have long suspected: this administration is not only out of touch with reality, it has also become dangerously self-satisfied.
“That the President is already speaking of remaining in office till 2031 betrays a mindset that dismisses re-election as mere formalities, rather than a constitutional requirement to present his score card to the people. But re-election is not automatic, and President Tinubu has not earned a second term.
“If anything, in two short years, he has shown Nigeria what he is capable of doing. He has divided the country like no other President before him and sent majority of Nigerians deeper into poverty. More innocent lives have been lost under him, and bandits have effectively taken control of a large swathes of our Northern territory. While the President taxes people and businesses to death from Abuja, bandits exert their own taxes in various states of the North.
“Under his watch, national security has degenerated into a cruel joke. Terrorists, bandits, and criminals now operate with total impunity. Citizens are kidnapped in broad daylight. Rural communities have become warzones. Insecurity has metastasized into national trauma, and the government has neither the will nor the capacity to stop it.”
The party claimed that the economy was in free fall, adding that the naira has collapsed, inflation was out of control, food prices have tripled in many parts of the country and jobs were vanishing.
It further said the middle class was disappeaing, businesses that once thrived were collapsing under the weight of punitive taxes and policy inconsistencies Nigerians were now poorer, hungrier, and angrier than they were before Tinubu took office in 2023.
“As for the power sector, it remains comatose despite yet another cycle of empty promises. Blackouts are the norm, not the exception. Billions have been spent, but megawatts have not increased. The darkness, both literal and metaphorical, persists. National grid has continued to collapse, while official greed get even bigger.
“On social development, the picture is equally bleak. Nigeria’s Human Development Index continues to slide. Education is underfunded, healthcare is collapsing, and millions of children are out of school. The youth—Nigeria’s greatest asset—are increasingly hopeless, jobless, and restless. Meanwhile, government intervention remains cosmetic.
“Human rights have been trampled on. Court orders are ignored. Journalists are harassed. Peaceful protesters are brutalized. And all of this is happening under the watch of a President who once claimed to be a democrat. Today, he presides over a system that is increasingly authoritarian in tone, arrogant in posture, and hostile to accountability.
“Transparency and fiscal discipline have become relics of a forgotten era. The administration has embraced secrecy as a governance principle. Budget padding, wasteful spending, opaque palliatives, and inexplicable loans have defined its fiscal conduct. The fuel subsidy saga alone is a national scandal yet to be properly explained.
“Given this comprehensive failure, it is not only insensitive but downright dangerous for anyone in the Tinubu presidency to speak sọ glibly of a second term. The President should not be plotting to stay. He should be preparing to leave. He has done enough damage.
“Nevertheless, let no one be deceived into thinking that the idea of a “life president” is too far-fetched. Afterall, this is the same man who, since leaving office in 2007, has singlehandedly anointed every governor of Lagos State, handpicked Speakers, and installed virtually every major public office holder in the state. What he perfected in Lagos, he now seeks to replicate on a national scale. But let it be said clearly and without ambiguity: Nigeria is not Lagos.
“Nigerians are watching. And come 2027, it won’t be APC versus ADC, it will be APC versus the Nigerian people,” the party stated.
