Frontline human rights activist, Aisha Yesufu, has declared that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has already lost the re-election battle ahead of the anticipated 2027 Nigerian presidential election.
Yesufu asserted on Thursday while speaking during an appearance on Politics Today on Channels Television, where she criticised what she described as the administration’s reliance on political alliances with state governors to project strength.
According to the activist, assembling governors under a political bloc does not necessarily translate into electoral victory if the ruling party lacks genuine public support.
“Bola Tinubu has already lost; that’s why he is looking for governors that he’d put together to have an illusion of power,” Yesufu said during the programme.
She argued that Nigeria’s political history shows that dominance among state governors does not guarantee success at the polls. As an example, she pointed to the period when the People’s Democratic Party controlled a large number of state governments but still lost the presidency.
“Once upon a time, I think PDP had twenty-something governors; it didn’t stop them from losing the election when it was time for them to lose,” she said.
Yesufu further claimed that public enthusiasm, rather than elite political alignment, would determine the outcome of the next election cycle.
She contrasted what she described as low interest in activities associated with the ruling establishment with what she said was rising engagement around the African Democratic Congress (ADC), which she noted had been attracting visible support among some segments of the electorate.
“The fact that they don’t have the people—you could see it when they were doing the registration and nobody was interested, nobody cared to visit their website. But you can see with the ADC the kind of passion it has gathered,” she added.
Her remarks come amid increasing political debate and early manoeuvring among parties and stakeholders ahead of Nigeria’s next presidential election, expected in 2027.
While the presidency has not responded directly to Yesufu’s comments, political analysts say public discourse around governance performance, party strength, and voter mobilisation is likely to intensify as the election cycle approaches.
