Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, Labour Party (LP) vice-presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, says anyone seeking to defeat President Bola Tinubu must be prepared for sustained political resistance rather than relying on the courts.
Baba-Ahmed spoke during an interview on Nigeria Right Now, uploaded on YouTube on Thursday.
The former senator said he had warned Peter Obi, the LP’s presidential candidate in 2023, that the judiciary could not resolve what he described as fundamental constitutional violations that occurred during the last general election.
“I told Peter Obi that the Supreme Court cannot give you a governorship or the presidency,” he said. “For God’s sake, stand up and do something. The Nigerian Constitution was clearly breached.”
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Baba-Ahmed specifically referenced section 134(2)(b) of the constitution, arguing that the alleged violation was unambiguous.
“The constitution was clearly breached. It couldn’t be any clearer,” he said. “If this were June 12 people, and you breached even one punctuation mark against their interest, nobody would sleep. They would take it.”
He contrasted what he described as the political culture of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) with the opposition’s reliance on litigation.
“As much as I dislike what they are doing with the constitution, you must give it to them — they fight for their interests,” he said. “They can organise rallies and sustain them for decades. Meanwhile, others are saying, ‘Let’s go to court.’”
According to Baba-Ahmed, defeating Tinubu would require visible and determined resistance.
“Whoever is going to defeat Tinubu must be ready for what I will call ‘red eye’,” he said. “There is no going to court. On the day fake results are declared, those declaring them are criminals, and those stopping them are good citizens.”
Obi had challenged Tinubu’s victory in the 2023 presidential election, but his petition was dismissed by the election tribunal, the court of appeal and ultimately the supreme court.
