Senior Special Assistant to the President on Print Media, Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, has disclosed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is unperturbed and completely not disturbed about the coalition, under the umbrella of African Democratic Congress (ADC), describing them as ‘food is ready politicians’.
This was just as he said that the former presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People Party (NNPP) in 2023 election, Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso is free to rejoin the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Abdulaziz, who made this known during an interactive session with journalists at the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Press Centre in Kano, added that most of these people now ganging up can best be described as food is ready politicians, frustrated because they thought the business is no longer as usual.
Dismissing political coalitions being championed by some opposition figures, he then described their promoters as ‘politically expired, bitter individuals driven by personal vendetta.
‘You should also know that these are a group of bitter individuals. People driven by personal vendetta and a sense of personal loss.
‘Their concern is not the people, is not the ordinary Nigerians. Their concern is that they are not on the table. And Nigerians have sufficiently understood this. And that is why the coalition is not catching fire as they thought it would,’ he added.
While reacting to questions on whether the presidency was worried about the coalition moves ahead of 2027, he said President Tinubu remained ‘completely unperturbed.’
‘President Tinubu is not in any way jittery about whether it is coalition or any political formation. Because one, is that the people that are championing these things, most of them are politically expired,’ he said.
‘There are people with no political weight or relevance that would jitter the government or the president. We have had serial contesters who had, you know, thrown their hearts into the ring on many occasions. And they were fully lost. And nothing much has changed. In fact, their star is dimming.
‘The so-called coalition leaders were only concerned with their exclusion from power rather than the welfare of Nigerians.’
Abdulaziz maintained that Tinubu’s leadership style was focused on tough but necessary reforms rather than political expediency.
According to him, ‘There is a difference between leadership and politics. Politics is a game of popularity. Leadership is a game of nation building. And that is what President Tinubu is doing.
To really take hard-hitting decisions, even if they affect him personally. But those decisions that he feels are for the good of the country,’ he said, citing infrastructure projects, the student loan scheme, and subsidy reforms as examples.
While commenting on the notion that the administration was concentrating major projects in the South, Abdulaziz said such claims lack substance and political sentiment to court favour by disgruntled politicians.
‘These views were ‘largely political,’ he said, noting that the president has continued with multi-billion-naira projects in the North including the Kano-Katsina-Maradi rail line, Abuja-Kaduna-Kano highway and Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano pipeline.
Tinubu’s aide therefore stated that if Tinubu ‘is like other politicians and is wicked or doesn’t like the North, he could leave these projects to be abandoned.
‘He can withhold financing. If there is no financing, these projects will stagnate or will even naturally die. But none of these projects that he inherited, which are massive, are actually stopped,’ he added.
He however noted that the Tinubu-led administration was also embarking on new projects such as the Sokoto-Badagry highway, stressing that development under the president was ‘holistic and not fragmented.’
Also commenting on the move by the presidential candidate of the NNPP in 2023 election, Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso to rejoin the APC, he noted that everybody is free to come to the party.
‘Tinubu’ is a kind of man, who does not forget his friends, ‘ adding that both Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje’, the immediate past National Chairman of the APC and Senator Kwankwaso were his good friends and there is no love lost between them.
‘Therefore, political party is about members adding that if today Senator Kwankwaso is ready to rejoin the APC and others also, the door is wide open for them, as numbers matter most in a political party,’ Abdulaziz added.