Nasir el-Rufai
Nasir el-Rufai, former governor of Kaduna, says there may be two rounds of the 2027 presidential elections.
Speaking on the Sunday Politics programme on Channels Television, el-Rufai said there is a possibility that no candidate would secure the required majority in the first round.
The former Kaduna governor had earlier said Nigeria was at risk if the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) wins the 2027 elections.
El-Rufai said voters will decide based on Tinubu’s performance and the performance of governors, not party switches.
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“I was governor of Kaduna state; I was one of Bola Tinubu’s biggest campaigners, but I couldn’t deliver the state to him,” he said.
“Bola Tinubu himself couldn’t win his state with his own governor in place. So, these things are not as theoretical as people want them to be.
“If you want to engage in self-delusion, you are free to do so. I will not tell you how we are going to win, but I tell you very clearly — the worst-case scenario in the 2027 elections is that no winner will emerge in the first round.
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“We may have to go for a runoff, and Bola Tinubu will not be on the ballot for the runoff, because he will, at best, be third in the election.
“He has no pathway to win. I have done the maths, I have done the analysis; he cannot — he will, at best, be third.
“But he can deceive himself; he may think, oh, you know, I have money, because they have taken all the money in the country, I have INEC, I have the police, I have the army. You know what, President Tinubu, invite ex-President Goodluck Jonathan for a chat, and ask him if he didn’t have all this in 2015, and we got him out. Is the case still the same? Similar to 2015? It’s worse.
“It’s like those who say Tinubu has never lost an election. That can be contested, but it’s okay. He’s a political strategist, he’s this, he’s that. Wait.
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“I naturally have said, if you want to learn some lessons, invite ex-President Goodluck Jonathan for a chat over coffee, and ask him what happened in 2015. That’s all.”
El-Rufai added that he would have resigned if he had been appointed a minister in Tinubu’s administration.
The former Kaduna governor left the APC over a year after his ministerial appointment was blocked by the national assembly over alleged security concerns.
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