The National Chairman of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, has claimed that former President Muhammadu Buhari resisted pressure from political interests seeking to make President Bola Tinubu his successor because he considered Tinubu’s presidency detrimental to Nigeria.
Baba-Ahmed made the claim at a summit organised by the Northern Elders Forum, where he criticised Tinubu’s administration and urged Nigerians to prevent the president’s ambition for a second term from overriding the national interest.
In a video of the event published on Symfoni’s YouTube channel, the PRP chairman said Nigerians should have questioned the implications of Tinubu’s presidential ambition when he declared “Emilokan”, a Yoruba expression meaning “it is my turn”, during the build-up to the 2023 general election.
“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,” Baba-Ahmed said.
He questioned the rationale behind the slogan, arguing that the presidency of a country with an estimated population of about 250 million people should not be treated as an entitlement belonging to an individual.
“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.
Baba-Ahmed Accuses Tinubu of Poor Performance
The PRP chairman accused Tinubu’s administration of worsening Nigeria’s difficulties, alleging that the country had reached a low point under the president’s leadership.
He argued that the administration had failed across key measures of national performance and warned against allowing Tinubu to secure another term without adequately addressing the country’s challenges.
“He has dragged the country as low as it is possible to go. And it has to stop him. We cannot go below, beyond where we are,” Baba-Ahmed said.
He further accused the president of placing personal political ambition ahead of the welfare of Nigerians.
“We will not allow a president to fulfil an ambition that one individual alone can wreak his country, just to prove that he has the power and the money to do so,” he said.
Baba-Ahmed also faulted Tinubu for allegedly failing to make a personal appeal to Nigerians for a second term, claiming that the president had relied on political allies to promote his re-election campaign.
He criticised governors in the North for what he described as their failure to adequately communicate the region’s economic difficulties and growing public dissatisfaction to the president.
Despite his criticism, Baba-Ahmed expressed confidence that Nigeria would overcome its current challenges, citing the resilience the country had demonstrated during previous national crises.
“We are very resilient people. We have seen crises bigger than this, and we survived it. We survived it, and we will survive this one,” he said.
He added that Nigerians would endure what he described as four years of “abuse, neglect, and plunder” under Tinubu, insisting that the country must survive for the sake of future generations.
