Tinubu To Opposition: No Red Carpet, We Fight To The End
President Bola Tinubu has thrown a direct challenge at his rivals ahead of the 2027 general election, declaring that anyone hoping to unseat him must be ready to contest the presidency to the very end, even as he insisted the electoral umpire remains impartial.
Speaking on Tuesday at the State House in Abuja during a meeting with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), led by its president and Archbishop of Kaduna, Most Rev. Matthew Ndagoso, the President framed the coming contest as a straight fight. “I asked for this job. I’m in it. Those who will take it from me will try. They will try. All is fair in politics, and it’s equal opportunity,” he said, according to a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.
“I’m ready, but I won’t give them a red carpet. I won’t offer them the leash to tie me and rope me. No, we wrestle each other to the finishing point,” he added.
Tinubu dismissed opposition concerns about the neutrality of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). “INEC, you mentioned, is neutral. They’ve never, never intimidated anybody. If political opponents are crying wolves, maybe they are afraid of their own shadows and the uncertainty in the companies they keep, not me,” he said.
His comments land with the presidential poll fixed for 16 January 2027, now less than six months away. They also come as the main opposition bloc, assembled under the African Democratic Congress (ADC), struggles to hold together. The coalition, which brings together former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Anambra governor Peter Obi, former Senate President David Mark as interim chairman and former Osun governor Rauf Aregbesola as interim secretary, has been strained by unresolved disputes over who carries its presidential ticket. In 2023, Tinubu won with about 8.79 million votes as the opposition splintered between Atiku and Obi, and observers have warned that a fresh split could ease his path to a second term. Within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), he is not expected to face any serious primary challenge.
The President used the audience to defend his record. He argued that living standards were improving despite the difficulties he inherited, and pointed to an uninterrupted university calendar as evidence. “You can’t say a four year course is not four years. ASUU is not on strike. They are not bringing agony to your homes,” he said.
Official figures offer a mixed backdrop. The National Bureau of Statistics put headline inflation at 15.91 percent in June 2026, down sharply from 25.29 percent a year earlier, while the economy expanded by about 4.4 percent, its strongest showing in more than a decade. The Central Bank of Nigeria trimmed its benchmark rate to 26.5 percent in May, its first cut in five years. Yet food inflation stayed elevated in states such as Kogi and Niger, and opposition figures continue to question the debt profile, with Atiku recently raising an alarm over borrowing he put at N12.62 trillion.
On insecurity, a recurring worry for the bishops, Tinubu said he had approved an expansion of the armed forces and was repositioning security agencies through better intelligence, reforms and improved troop welfare. “The security situation is what it is. We don’t have another country, but here, this Nigeria,” he said.
The delegation of about 20 bishops pressed for credible polls, an end to insecurity, wider access to tertiary education and the return of mission schools. Ndagoso urged the President to make the strengthening of democratic institutions his enduring legacy.