2027: Opposition’s coalition against Tinubu’s re-election dead on arrival — Shehu Sani

A former member of the National Assembly and rights activist, Shehu Sani, says the opposition’s coalition targeted at unseating President Bola Tinubu in 2027 is dead on arrival.

Sani, who represented Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the Eighth Senate, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.

He said that though it was within the democratic rights of Nigerians to organise themselves into a coalition, the credentials of those championing the present coalition course had shown very clearly that the move would be a total fiasco.

“Yes, any country or government without opposition can easily slide into a dictatorship or one-party state.

“If everyone goes into one political party and there is nobody to challenge the government or hold the government to account, our government could be run aground.

“We need a coalition and we need a credible opposition; a credible opposition should not be a canopy of frustrated and angry people, whose interest is not the country or the people, but their own selfish interest.

“There are people in this coalition whose presence will give you ghost pimples — someone like former governor of Kaduna State, Nasiru El-Rufai.

“He is not a clean political figure that came out of the trenches; he is not someone who has never been in government.

“Nigeria just celebrated 26 years of democracy and El-Rufai was the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises for four years, minister for four years, and governor for eight years, and so why did he not achieve all those things he is saying now while in office?” he queried.

Sani said that if one had been in office for almost 20 years and the person is in his mid-sixties, such a person should be thankful to God because millions of people wanted to get what such a person was taking for granted.

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He said though former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, one of the opposition figures, had the constitutional right to contest, he should not run in the 2027 presidential election.

Sani said that Atiku should allow a southerner to contest and serve out the turn of the South, saying by doing that, he would have the moral right to seek the support of the South in 2031.

“As someone who has been in the political realm more than many other politicians, he should know that there are consequences for contesting elections every other time and losing.”