Hunger Will Be President Tinubu’s Opposition In 2027 – Ameh

Amid economic hardship confronting the country, arising from the policies of President Bola Tinubu-led administration, the politicking for 2027 continues to gather momentum

Naija News reported a series of political meetings between former presidential candidates, including Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).

Currently, all the major opposition political parties, PDP, LP and NNPP are grappling with leadership crisis. The implication has been massive defections to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

The call for the merger of the major opposition political leaders has also become inundating from politicians, political watchers and citizens.

Naija News in an exclusive interview spoke with the National Secretary of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), a 2019 presidential candidate of the Progressives Peoples Alliance (PPA) and former National Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council of Nigeria, (IPAC), Peter Ameh, on the government’s economic policies, the situation of opposition political parties, the 2027 election and Electoral Act.

What Do You Think About President Bola Tinubu’s Economic Policies?

Ameh said the current government’s economic policies lacked rationality. He said the government has not prioritized the interest of the citizens.

His words: “I think this government does not have the interest of Nigeria at heart. They have not done, they have to do what they call, you have to prioritize the rest of your people. You make it a priority. When this government came in, this infamous statement of subsidy is gone. It was disastrous. That’s the truth. I’m not single trying to mince words. I will give you details.

“Because at the time he got in, we’re buying fuel at what rate. That’s about 190 per liter. And then because of lack of planning, because of lack of scheduling, because of lack of checking the impact assessment of the policy on Nigerian people. He made a statement in an impromptu irrational and impulsive manner.

“It was reckless of the President. There’s no doubt about that. Let me tell you why. That statement exacerbated the situation we are today and brought us into this great debacle in the sense that the statement increased transportation by about 300%.

“That same day, people used to travel from Abuja here to Osun for 3,000 naira. Now it’s just coming from Nyanya to Abuja, is ₦3,000.”

But the government said more revenue has been gotten and also states are getting more money to do so many projects?

The CUPP National Secretary asked at what expense, at the expense of the masses. He said former President Goodluck Jonathan‘s policies should have been adopted by the current government.

He continued: “I will come to that, at what expense? At the expense of the life of the masses? What the government would have done was to borrow from the Jonathan administration. You might not like Jonathan. He might not be the famous person anybody should like. But the fact that there was this plan during Jonathan’s time; you have these buses that were generated.

“Imagine if you had 100 buses in each of the states of the federation, and then you had the buses, and you launch that, the buses will be running to cushion the effect. Because of that reason, nobody would be able to increase the price of transportation.

“Because when goods are transported, the cost of that will be transmitted into the cost or would be included in the cost of sales. This is an increment in the cost of living. And this eventually, it affected the cost of tomatoes, the cost of everything, the cost of sweet potato, the cost of yam. All these things were affected because of the cost of transportation. There was no way to mitigate it.

“So you say the governors are getting more money? We know the governors have always not managed the resources of the state very well. So we are looking at fiscal policy of you who is responsible for managing the overall welfare of the people across states; your decision will have impacts.

“If a governor makes a small mistake, it’s going to affect the people of Kogi, not the Nigerian people. If the President makes a mistake, it will affect the entire people of this country. The attempts to try to look for more revenue; it makes me laugh because we have not even prioritized the revenue we have generated.”

2025 Budget, Unfulfilled Promises, And President’s Foreign Trips

The former IPAC‘s National Chairman said the 2025 budget would not deliver its promise. He condemned the lack of sacrifice from the government. He advised improvement in security to attract foreign investments.

He continued: “Last year, 2024 budget, capital expenditure performed be around around 25%. With that, where is Nigeria going to? So we have a situation of misaligned allocation of resources.

“We have a decision when our budget is the recipe for the development and debt servicing. We must get it right by looking at the people who are in government who are preaching austerity measures.

“Imagine if the President had used the $150 million that was used to procure the private jet and escalade and said what we are going to do is to look at close to 39,000 square kilometers of land that is in Kogi, close to 75,000 that is in Niger and the one in Benue. Let’s use N1,000,000 per hectare to do farming. You know the kind of food that will come out this year and next year, and it will affect the price inflation of food.

“Price inflation of food today is about 40%. Headline inflation is about 34.8%. That 34.8 percent on headline inflation, food inflation alone contributes 17%. So if you look at the 40% food inflation, if this is done to mitigate the effect of this thing, it will reduce.

“And government must not continue to have line items in expenditure where you have ₦9.4 billion budgeted for the travels of the President and the Vice President. What are you traveling for? If your economy is working well, you have security… Nobody goes to anywhere where there is no security.

“To attract foreign investment is to put out an environment in this country; by putting out that, people can travel without fear or favour from Calabar to Ogoja, from Ogoja to Benue, from Benue to Kogi; and people can move from here to Lokoja, and from here to Kaduna on express roads, without fear of bandits, and people can go to their farms.

“Don’t forget the President promised he would be tilling about 500,000 hectares of land for farming so that there can be food sufficiency. Has he till 1 square meter? That promise was not cleared. So it is about prioritizing the wealth of the people and putting money where we specifically put in. Because we cannot have repeated line items that every year, we buy vehicles for the presidency.

“This year’s budget, about ₦4 billion has been put inside for the jetties and building of helipad in Lagos for the President. So this kind of budget has not been micro-directed to affect the life of the common man. What will affect the life of the common man is not ₦70,000 minimum wage. That’s for the lowest, the other civil servants are not receiving that. The purchasing power of the ₦70,000 has been weakened by the devaluation of the naira.

“So the President must get it right. What are the mass housing schemes that are in place? If you say you are saving about ₦8 trillion from subsidy, why share it to the states? Why not use that money to try to build mass housing schemes for civil servants, for low-income earners, whether in the public and informal sectors, so that they will be able to have something to look up for?

“We have not even gone to the building material cost. This is my business. As I’m talking to you, the price of cement is about ₦9,500. Iron rod, all these things have gone up. So he’s taking houses more far away from the reach of the common man.

“I don’t want to dissect the whole thing so that I don’t look like prophet of doom. But the challenge we have today is daunting. We must have a President that must be determined, that must take responsibility, and must sit down and work day and night to make sure that Nigeria gets out of this way.

“We had our President elected at the same time as Argentina’s President when Argentina was running about ₦12 billion in debt. Today, what they have done was just to do governance cost reduction. They have reduced the cost of their governance so drastically that inflation and everything are dropping.

“One of the things people don’t know is that when government literally lit our money on fire without doing the right thing, there’s no way we can have a stable economy, when government is not managing and putting money in the right place that will affect the life of the common man.”

Why are opposition parties not holding the government on its policies?

Ameh said the silence of political parties amid economic hardship caused by the government’s policies is embarrassing. He, however, commended opposition political leaders like Obi and Atiku for speaking out.

His words: “It is shameful that we have parties that are not doing as much as they should do. It’s embarrassing. Power is not something that you have to drink, and it will be served to you in the tea cup. So it is shameful that that’s not happening.

“But there are opposition leaders who have been up and that are doing their best. Political opposition leaders are different from political party leadership. These are 2 different scenarios.

“So if you talk about the short hand fall of the opposition political party, yes, I will admit. But if you talk about the opposition leaders, their effectiveness to talk to people to try to look at government policies, to try to dissect policies, there have been a lot of them from Peter Obi to Atiku, especially Peter Obi.

“If you look at Atiku, Atiku made a revelation that some political party leaders are getting ₦50 million from the government.

“There is no way the government can even be happy if it kills the opposition because oppositions play critical roles in the survival of democracy in any country.

“The present President was in opposition since 1999. Even before 1999, because he was elected Senator in the aborted third republic.

“He saw that he had the privilege. So if you see somebody like that who said he has fought and there’s this accusation and counter-accusation, that is an interference in the management of opposition political party; It’s an embarrassment, and international community is taking note.

“What I say is that people should not also focus on the opposition as much. Just like other leaders have said, the ruling party itself has not done anything to say they’ll have to retain power.

“The party ruling party is not organized. Since Ganduje came, there has never been a NEC meeting or a convention. So these are the general issues that have characterized the management of our political parties.

“But we know that with this kind of momentum that a lot of opposition leaders are building, that we are definitely going to get it right and face the ruling government in 2027.

“Because what would be major opposition to the government in power would be the hunger on the street. People know that they are having more talk and less action.”

Can opposition parties on their own unseat the current government, or is there a need for a merger?

The former presidential candidate of PPA said hunger would be APC‘s opposition in 2027.

His words: “I told people who asked me. If there’s merger, it’s an additional strength, and it is the more the merrier. But the next election will not be run on the basis of whether you are popular or whether you are this. It will be run on the basis of the track record of the individuals, on the competency of the people.

“And the ability of whatever parties that are going to produce a candidate to be able to have agents across every polling unit. So have data-driven agents so that they can have their results ready even before INEC’s result is ready. So it depends on the organization of the party.

“Our election for 2027 will be based on records of these individuals, those who have carried drugs, those who have certificates, those who have performed, those who have done well, those who are sincere, who have integrity, who have proven track records. It will be based on competence, merit, and ability of each of the candidates that will be put on ballot box.

“Obi joined Labour Party 6 months to the election and you saw what happened. That’s 6-something million votes. I think that with better organization, the opposition party can. Look at what Kwankwaso did in Kano. When did they join an NNPP? They were able to win the state.

“So we are not talking about this. We’re talking about the hunger on the street will be the major opposition to the ruling APC, because the people are tired. The people are not seeing anything. The hunger is so much, the frustration, the inflation, the cost of living expenditure. Have you gone to the market to see how things have increased so astronomically? You can’t buy tomatoes. You can’t buy nothing in the market today.

“If you have ₦30,000, how long can you feed your family? Look at what happened in Ghana. It was because of this poverty and all these issues and policies that have not helped to improve the life of the people; that’s why the Ghanaian said, no, they need a president who can do that.

“They brought back their former president despite the ruling party and their vice presidential candidate on the ballot.”

Can Nigeria have a credible election in 2027 without amendment to the Electoral Act?

Chief Ameh said though the Electoral Act should be amended it would not be too much of a challenge in the 2027 election if all political actors play their roles well. He emphasized that votes must count in 2027.

His words: “We need the amendment of the electoral act. We need it. It is important. But like, a lot of my friends have said, the laws are not the problem. It is the people that are managing the laws.

“The people contesting the elections, like I said before, have well-trained agents in each of the polling that can monitor the process and collect data-driven documents and put it across to the collection center of their parties.

“So we must have political parties that have kind of capacity to be able to have agents in 175,000 polling units so that each of this data will be available. You will know truly the people who voted for you. You will know if you are rigged out, and they know the decision to be taken. But power is not given like we have said.

“People are willing to mobilize Nigerians to be able to defend the votes and determine the course of victory for whoever they have voted for. The vote must count.

“People don’t look at legitimacy. Elections can be conducted but has it conferred legitimacy on those who have been declared so far? It’s weakening our electoral process, making people to have more less faith in the electoral process.

“And we’re talking about the electoral commission to also know that this is a make or mar election. Election that will determine the continuous fate in our democracy. So I know that this electoral reform will happen. A lot of people have talked about it. A lot of people are pushing for it.

“We will continue to push for the necessary little amendment that’s needed to make sure that the criminal collection center and the professors who work at this collection center to undermine the integrity of our elections, become a thing of the past, and are resisted by the people.”