The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has fired back at the Presidency over its recent assertion that President Bola Tinubu has no plans to extend his tenure beyond 2031, describing the remarks as presumptuous and patently undemocratic.

In a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC asserts that the President’s mandate ends in 2027, and the party is confident that Nigerians will not wish to extend his tenure by a single day.

Given the spate of banditry and killings raging across the country, the widespread hunger and suffering, the punitive taxes, the flagrant abuse of power at a scale never seen before, the President should be preparing to leave in 2027, any plan to stay in office beyond that date would indeed be a confirmation that this government is incapable of reading the room.

“The presidency’s desperate response to the recent remarks by former governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, that President Bola Tinubu has plans to be a life President only serves to confirm what Nigerians have long suspected: this administration is not only out of touch with reality, it has also become dangerously self-satisfied.”

“That the President is already speaking of remaining in office till 2031 betrays a mindset that dismisses re-election as mere formalities, rather than a constitutional requirement to present his score card to the people. But re-election is not automatic, and President Tinubu has not earned a second term.

“If anything, in two short years, he has shown Nigeria what he is capable of doing. He has divided the country like no other President before him and sent majority of Nigerians deeper into poverty. More innocent lives have been lost under him, and bandits have effectively taken control of large swathes of our Northern territory. While the President taxes people and businesses to death from Abuja, bandits exert their own taxes in various states of the North.

“Under his watch, national security has degenerated into a cruel joke. Terrorists, bandits, and criminals now operate with total impunity. Citizens are kidnapped in broad daylight. Rural communities have become warzones. Insecurity has metastasized into national trauma, and the government has neither the will nor the capacity to stop it.

“The economy, meanwhile, is in free fall. The naira has collapsed. Inflation is out of control. Food prices have tripled in many parts of the country. Jobs are vanishing. The middle class is disappearing.

“Businesses that once thrived are collapsing under the weight of punitive taxes and policy inconsistencies Nigerians are now poorer, hungrier, and angrier than they were before Tinubu took office.” (Daily Trust)