Labour Party vice presidential candidate in 2023, Datti Baba-Ahmed, has said that Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi and others in the coalition to oust President Bola Tinubu out of office are after their selfish interests, warning it will be hard to defeat incumbent president with such approach. 

In an interview with Daily Trust published on Thursday, Mr Baba-Ahmed said he could not see anyone in the coalition willing to make the kind of sacrifice Mr Tinubu made before eventually emerging president in 2023.

“I don’t yet see anyone in this coalition who can scheme and plan over 16 years. With all due respect to Atiku, he has contested consistently—this will be the seventh time. But tell me: is there anyone else in the coalition who will say, “Let it be the other person, and I will support them”? I’m yet to see that. Everyone seems only interested in their own candidacy,” Mr Baba-Ahmed said.

Citing Mr Tinubu’s strategic political moves for many years to explain his stance, Mr Baba-Ahmed said “But what did Tinubu do? He invested in Buhari, unreliable as Buhari was. He backed him—and after Buhari, he took over. He stayed committed for 16 years and took it in 2023. Tinubu gave Atiku the ACN in 2007. Gave it to Ribadu in 2011. Backed Buhari in 2015. And waited until 2023 to take it himself.”

Asked if he was praising Mr Tinubu for his political strategies, Mr Baba-Ahmed said “No! I’m not praising him. I’m saying: to defeat this phenomenon called Tinubu, you must do the unthinkable.”

He added, “If this coalition—which I recognise—thinks it’s business as usual, it won’t work. It has to be less about individual ambition and more about Nigeria. More action, less talk. Because talk is cheap.”

Mr Baba-Ahmed’s stance followed the coalition’s adoption of African Democratic Congress (ADC) as the party to challenge Mr Tinubu in 2027.

Mr Obi, a former Anambra State governor, who ran alongside Mr Baba-Ahmed in 2023 but came third,  said he was rooting for a coalition to dismantle Mr Tinubu’s structure that impoverished Nigerians, adding no single group could change the country.

The coalition, which includes Mr Abubakar, Nasir El-Rufai, Mr Obi, and Mr David Mark, has new announced Mr Mark, a former Senate president, and Rauf Aregbesola, a former governor of Osun State, as its national chairman and national secretary, respectively.