As the 2027 elections approach, Dr. Umar Tanko Yakasai, Director-General of the Tinubu Support Group (TSG), has dismissed concerns over a proposed opposition coalition aimed at unseating President Bola Tinubu, asserting that the alliance is unlikely to succeed.
Dr. Yakasai also said Nigerians will not trust the coalition because of their antecedents.
“So, seeing the coalition of opposition being gradually depleted, you wonder if you should have sleepless nights. And I believe Nigerians will not believe what these leaders are saying because they know their true colours as they do not intend to govern for the interests of the masses. I do not think whatever they are doing should worry us”, Yakasai said.
Highlighting Tinubu’s achievements since he assumed office in 2023, Yakasai, who supervises scores of other support groups with millions of members across the country, declared that “the first major achievement of this administration is to do away with the unsustainable fuel subsidy that became a monster consuming resources, billions of Naira, that would have been used for national development but ended up in the pockets of a few individuals.
“The second thing is that streamlining of the parallel foreign exchange market, which hitherto saw a few connected persons doing round-tripping — getting foreign currency from the Central Bank and instead of using it for manufacturing or industry, they go and sell to forex dealers in the black market.
“So, these two major measures which President Tinubu took in May 2023 when he assumed office, put a brake to the destruction of Nigeria’s economic system.”
On what Nigerians should expect from the Tiinubu administration in the remaining first term, he said: “They should exercise patience and continue to support President Tinubu. I can guarantee them that by the time the various policies take full effect, Nigerians will have a lot of benefits in terms of road network, health infrastructure, education, security, and significant improvement in the economy.
“Also, you can’t start reforms and stop them midway, some of them require continuity for them to fully mature. Nigerians should remember that even other presidential candidates had equally promised to remove the petrol subsidy, but the problem is that they would not have managed the consequences as professionally as President Tinubu is doing.
“So, Nigerians should be patient and In sha Allah, there will be more progress and it is only when you guarantee continuity that you will see full results and manifest success in next two years; moreso when President Bola Tinubu comes back for a second term.”
Speaking to journalists in Abuja at the weekend, Yakasai dismissed talks of Nigeria becoming a one-party state because of the gale of defections to Tinubu’s ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, noting that some of the party’s members have also defected to the opposition as allowed by democracy and constitutional freedom of association.
Dr. Yakasai said the politicians forming a coalition against the President are distrusted by Nigerians because they failed in the past when given the opportunity to govern the country as they instead created a mess that Tinubu is now trying to clear and put Nigeria on a path of development.
According to him: “In Nigeria, we have seen that after every election, the losers tend to cry the loudest even when they performed abysmally when given the opportunity to serve the people. What the APC has come to do is clear the mess of past misgovernance by the Peoples Democratic Party for 16 years.
“You can remember that it was in this country that $16 billion meant for power infrastructure went missing; it was in this country that we had the Halliburton scandal for which an American senator was jailed, but collaborators in Nigeria have not faced the law.
“So APC has come to correct these things done by PDP. Most of them who held sway since 1999 — and I know them well, performed badly and now that President Tinubu has come to rectify their misgovernance, instead of supporting him, they are the ones forming a coalition to try and take power again after Nigerians have driven them out.
“We know their antecedents, and they are just a coalition with an interest in becoming President. It is easy for coalitions to meet because of their interests, but when it comes time to agree, they will naturally disagree because that is in their character. In any case, when the coalition meets, many of its members have been moving into APC in droves.
