NIGERIA DESK | 2027 ELECTION.
Inside Baba-Ahmed’s Blunt New Verdict On 2027, And Why He’s Saying It
Peter Obi’s 2023 running mate, now a declared 2027 presidential contender of his own, says Tinubu has built an unrivalled political machine and controls the opposition’s options, even as he dismisses Obi, Atiku and other rivals as recycled establishment figures.
ABUJA — The Atlantic Digest
Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, Peter Obi’s running mate on the 2023 Labour Party ticket, says President Bola Tinubu has built a political machine so dominant that “only God Almighty” can stop his re-election in 2027, a blunt assessment delivered even as Baba-Ahmed simultaneously dismisses Tinubu’s other declared challengers, including his own former running mate, as unfit to fix Nigeria.
“If Tinubu says something will happen, only God Almighty can stop it,” Baba-Ahmed said in an interview with TrustTV, adding flatly: “Nigeria now belongs to Tinubu.” He grounded the claim in what he described as Tinubu’s methodical, decades-long approach to coalition-building, crediting the president with orchestrating the 2015 merger that formed the All Progressives Congress and persuading Muhammadu Buhari to come out of retirement to lead it. “He organised for 16 years against all odds,” Baba-Ahmed said, calling it “an extraordinary political achievement” that no other Nigerian politician has matched.
Baba-Ahmed went further, suggesting Tinubu’s reach extends into the opposition’s own ranks. “He will not allow them (opposition) to come together. He probably actually chooses candidates in the opposition parties,” he said, implying the president exercises influence over rival party leadership fights, not just his own camp. Asked whether his remarks amounted to praise or criticism of Tinubu, Baba-Ahmed declined to characterise them either way. “It is anybody’s business to interpret it anyhow. I only state the facts,” he said.
The comments are notable in part because of who is making them. Baba-Ahmed was the Labour Party’s vice-presidential candidate alongside Peter Obi in the 2023 election, a ticket that ran on an explicit anti-establishment message. His own political career predates that alliance by two decades: he was elected to the House of Representatives from Zaria under the All Nigeria People’s Party in 2003, contested a Kaduna North senatorial seat under the Congress for Progressive Change in 2011 in a race whose result was later overturned in court, sought the PDP’s presidential ticket unsuccessfully in 2018, and withdrew from a PDP governorship primary in Kaduna State in 2022, saying he would not pay bribes to delegates. Obi picked him as running mate in July 2022 after what Obi described as a “thorough search,” citing shared vision between the two men.
That partnership has since fractured. Obi left the Labour Party earlier this year for the African Democratic Congress, joining a broader opposition coalition effort ahead of 2027. Baba-Ahmed did not follow him, rejecting the coalition strategy outright: “The real coalition we need is in the ballot box,” he has argued, pointing to the Labour Party’s strong 2023 showing as proof that a formal alliance of established parties is unnecessary. About a week after Obi’s departure, on January 7, Baba-Ahmed declared his own bid for the presidency under the Labour Party banner. “I have made myself available to contest for the office in 2027. I’m not following anybody’s trajectory or stepping into anybody’s shoes,” he said, adding, “We will not let Nigerians down. We will remain together and provide a genuine alternative for Nigerians.”
That declaration frames his recent broadsides against the rest of the field. Baba-Ahmed has argued that neither Obi, Atiku Abubakar, nor other 2027 challengers can meaningfully change Nigeria’s direction, on the grounds that all of them have, at some point, been part of the political establishment he blames for the country’s problems. “All those people contesting against him too were all in bed together at some point or another, including Peter Obi,” he said, pointing to Obi’s earlier membership of the PDP. He has also questioned why Atiku has only recently pursued questions about Tinubu’s American legal and educational records “with the same intensity,” suggesting selective outrage.
Baba-Ahmed casts himself as the exception, describing himself as the only serious 2027 contender who has never belonged to a party while it held power at the federal level; he notes he resigned from the CPC before it merged into the APC in 2015. His own record, however, includes stints in the ANPP, the CPC and the PDP over two decades, a history that complicates, without necessarily disproving, his claim to be the field’s sole outsider. It is a distinction of timing as much as of principle: unlike Obi’s tenure in the PDP while it governed Nigeria from 1999 to 2015, Baba-Ahmed’s own party moves came either before those parties took federal power or after they had lost it.
The current rift with Obi is not new. In a July 2025 appearance on Arise Television, Baba-Ahmed argued that Obi, having drawn what Baba-Ahmed described as a disputed 10 million votes in 2023, should have run for president himself rather than accept the vice-presidential slot, a comment widely read at the time as an early sign of strain between the two men.
Separately, Baba-Ahmed has said Tinubu should not seek to extend his tenure beyond a second term, telling reporters the president should “prepare to hand over and move away, but not to the people contesting against him,” a formulation that stops short of naming a preferred successor but is difficult to read as anything other than a pitch for his own candidacy.
Baba-Ahmed’s positioning comes as the Labour Party itself faces significant institutional strain following Obi’s exit. INEC has denied the party access to its official portal and declined to recognise Labour Party candidates for the Abuja Area Council elections, citing a leadership dispute in which the commission maintains that Julius Abure’s tenure as national chairman expired in 2024. Baba-Ahmed and other party officials have expressed confidence the disputes will be resolved before 2027, though the turmoil raises questions about how credible a platform the party currently offers for his stated ambitions.
The Presidency has previously dismissed Baba-Ahmed’s commentary in similarly pointed terms. In April 2025, presidential spokesman Sunday Dare described an earlier round of Baba-Ahmed remarks as “illogical logic,” saying Tinubu “would not only seek re-election but would win comfortably based on his performance,” and suggesting Baba-Ahmed would be better served staying out of politics altogether. Neither the Presidency, Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar nor the Labour Party had issued a fresh public response to Baba-Ahmed’s latest “only God” remarks at the time of this report.
The Atlantic Digest will continue to track reaction to Baba-Ahmed’s comments and developments in the Labour Party’s internal dispute as the 2027 field continues to take shape.
