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"Another Term for the Same Administration May Just Put an End to This Country": Tinubu's Former Adviser‑Turned‑PRP Chairman Baba‑Ahmed Delivers His Most Dire Warning Yet — While Pro‑Tinubu Group Calls for "Continuity Mandate" at Parallel Abuja Press Conference
There is something uniquely arresting about a warning when it is delivered not by a lifelong opponent but by a man who, until recently, sat inside the very administration he now says is steering the nation toward catastrophe. Dr. Hakeem Baba‑Ahmed — the former Special Adviser on Political Matters to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who resigned in frustration in April 2025, who later told a national television audience that he "didn't do any job" during his 18 months in the Villa because the President was inaccessible and disconnected, and who, in March 2026, emerged as the National Chairman of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) — sat before journalists over the weekend and delivered the most apocalyptic verdict yet pronounced on the Tinubu presidency by any figure of his proximity to power. "Another term for the same administration may just put an end to this country," Baba‑Ahmed said — a sentence that, by its sheer gravity, travelled further and faster than any of the more familiar opposition critiques that preceded it.
Less than 48 hours later, in a different corner of Abuja, a very different press conference was underway. The Renewed Hope Grassroots Initiatives (RHGI), a political pressure group aligned with the Tinubu administration, assembled journalists to declare its support for what it called a "continuity mandate," urging Nigerians to back the President for a second term "in the interest of stability and continuity." The group's Director‑General, Dr. Jaafaru Y. Sa'ad, argued that insecurity "did not start with President Bola Tinubu," that the President had "inherited it from the four past Presidents," and that trying to blame him for the security challenges was "disingenuous." He warned Nigerians against politicians promising one‑term presidencies, insisting that "four years does not grant enough time to effect any substantive change," and urged that the South be allowed to complete its eight‑year tenure in the spirit of "equity, fairness, and national unity." The two press conferences — held in the same city, within a day of each other, and addressing the same electorate — represent something more than a disagreement over policy. They represent two irreconcilable visions of Nigeria's present condition: one in which the country is on the precipice of collapse and requires urgent political change, and another in which the country is on a path of recovery and requires continuity to consolidate its gains. The 2027 election will be the arena in which these two visions collide — and Baba‑Ahmed, in his new role as PRP chairman, has positioned himself as one of the most credible messengers of the first.
"We've Never Been in a War Situation More Than We Are Now": Baba‑Ahmed's Indictment
Speaking to journalists — including the Nigerian Tribune, Daily Post, and Naija News — in an interview that was published on Friday, 2 May 2026, Baba‑Ahmed laid out a diagnosis of Nigeria's condition that was remarkable not for its novelty but for its comprehensiveness. "We've never been in a war situation more than we are now. We have a government that is too removed from the people. They don't really understand the state in which Nigerians live. We are living with the highest level of insecurity that we have ever lived with. Poverty levels are unprecedented, young people have no hope. There is nothing to inspire them to be good citizens and to grow up in a country that does not care for them to be productive adults. We are fighting each other, we are hating each other. The country is more divided now than it has ever been," he said. The indictment was not merely economic or security‑focused; it was social, psychological, and existential.
He described a government that had become "too removed from the people" — a phrase that carried a particular charge coming from a man who had served inside that government for 18 months and who, upon resigning, had told Channels TV that the difference between what Tinubu's people said the country was and what the country actually was "was miles apart." Baba‑Ahmed's Vanguard interview from May 2025 — in which he said he refused to meet the President because he would have told him "things he might not want to hear, such as advising him to not seek a second term" — had, at the time, been dismissed by some as the bitter reflections of a sidelined adviser. But his emergence as PRP chairman in March 2026, and now his warning that a second Tinubu term could "put an end to this country," has retroactively transformed that earlier interview into something closer to a prophecy — one that has now, in his telling, been fulfilled.
Responding to suggestions that opposition to the President is part of a coordinated political strategy, the PRP leader dismissed the claim, insisting instead that Nigeria's challenges stem from escalating criminal activities and the state's inability to effectively contain them. He maintained that public dissatisfaction is driven by real‑life experiences of hardship, not political manipulation, and urged the government to focus on addressing insecurity and improving welfare conditions. "If there is a gang up, it will be a gang up of criminals and bandits and killers and kidnappers that the same president has not been able to contain," Baba‑Ahmed said. "Those are the only people who will gang up so that Nigerians will be killed and maimed and be made poorer. It's no gang up. The President is incapable of securing Nigerians and is blaming the criminals. He's blaming politicians rather than dealing with the sources, the manifestation of insecurity. If he said there is a gang up against him, it's not coming from law‑abiding citizens, it is coming from those who think President Tinubu should mobilise to protect them." The language is unsparing, but it is also precise: Baba‑Ahmed is not accusing the President of corruption or bad faith; he is accusing him of incapacity — of being unable to perform the most fundamental function of the state, which is the protection of its citizens.
The PRP's Position: From "Talakawa" Roots to National Ambition
Baba‑Ahmed's warnings do not exist in a vacuum. They are delivered from the platform of the PRP — a party with deep historical roots in Nigeria's pro‑people politics, founded on the "talakawa" (common man) ideology of the late Mallam Aminu Kano, which champions competence, accountability, and the welfare of ordinary citizens — and they carry the institutional weight of a party that has signalled its intent to reposition itself as a credible opposition force ahead of the 2027 elections. Since emerging as National Chairman in March 2026, Baba‑Ahmed has articulated a reform‑driven agenda, calling on citizens to "remain actively involved in the democratic process" and pledging to offer Nigerians "a credible alternative built on competence, accountability, and the welfare of the people." His leadership is also notable for another reason: he is the older brother of Yusuf Datti Baba‑Ahmed, the 2023 Labour Party vice‑presidential candidate, who has publicly expressed confidence in the PRP's ability to play a significant role in the next electoral cycle — a familial connection that some analysts believe could facilitate coalition‑building in the fractured opposition landscape.
While both brothers are active in politics, they operate within different party structures. Datti has described Hakeem as a "seasoned public servant and intellectual with years of experience" who is "not interested in financial gains in politics." The PRP under Baba‑Ahmed's leadership has focused on grassroots mobilisation, membership expansion, and strengthening its national presence — a strategy that, if successful, could position the party as more than a marginal force in the 2027 contest. The party now finds itself at an interesting crossroads: it is simultaneously the platform from which Baba‑Ahmed is issuing some of the most dire warnings about Nigeria's trajectory, and a potential participant in the broader opposition realignment that has seen Obi and Kwankwaso defect to the NDC and Atiku remain in the ADC. Baba‑Ahmed's warnings, in this context, serve a dual purpose: they are both a genuine expression of alarm and a political positioning — a declaration that the PRP, under his leadership, will not be a passive observer of the 2027 contest but an active participant in shaping its outcome.
The RHGI Counter‑Narrative: Continuity, Rotation, and the Case for a Second Term
If Baba‑Ahmed's interview was an indictment, the RHGI's press conference on Sunday was a rebuttal — one that addressed the same themes of insecurity, economic hardship, and political stability but arrived at the opposite conclusion. Sa'ad argued that Nigeria's security challenges predate the Tinubu administration, noting that the President had inherited them from four previous presidents and was "redesigning the intelligence and security architecture he inherited — and these things do not materialise overnight." He pointed to what he described as improving economic indicators: inflation declining from 34.8 per cent in December 2024 to 15.2 per cent by December 2025, foreign reserves climbing to $46 billion (the highest in seven years), the IMF projecting 4.4 per cent growth for Nigeria in 2026, and the country's removal from the FATF grey list in October 2025.
Sa'ad also weighed in on the debate around tenure and power rotation, pushing back against proposals for a single four‑year presidential term — an idea championed in recent years by Peter Obi and currently being discussed within opposition circles. "In the spirit of equity, fairness and national unity, it becomes just and equitable for President Tinubu to be allowed the chance to complete his eight‑year tenure," Sa'ad said. "A single term of four years does not grant enough time to effect any substantive change and is capable of truncating the peaceful rotational presidency we have enjoyed." On social interventions, he highlighted the student loan scheme, arguing that "Tinubu's administration grants access to education for the poor and middle classes." While acknowledging the hardship that has accompanied the reforms, Sa'ad appealed for patience, insisting that "reforms everywhere in the world come with pains — Nigerians should endure today for a brighter and better future."
The group called for nationwide backing of the President's second‑term ambition and pledged to mobilise grassroots support across the country. "We call on all Nigerians to give President Bola Ahmed Tinubu another four years in 2027 to complete the work he has started," Sa'ad said. The RHGI's intervention is significant not merely for its content but for its timing — a direct response, even if not explicitly acknowledged as such, to the rising chorus of opposition voices arguing that a second Tinubu term would be catastrophic for the country. The battle for the narrative of the 2027 election is being fought not just in the newspapers and on social media, but in parallel press conferences in Abuja, each claiming to represent the true interests of the Nigerian people.
Two Visions, One Election
The exchange between Hakeem Baba‑Ahmed and the Renewed Hope Grassroots Initiatives is not merely a debate over policy — it is a contest over the meaning of Nigeria's present condition. Baba‑Ahmed sees a nation that has "never been in a war situation more than we are now," a government "too removed from the people," and a president who is "incapable of securing Nigerians." Sa'ad sees an economy on the mend, security reforms taking root, and a country that needs continuity to consolidate its gains. Between these two visions lies the space in which the 2027 election will be contested, and both men — the former adviser who now leads an opposition party, and the grassroots organiser who defends the administration he once served — understand that the outcome will be determined not by the eloquence of their arguments but by the lived experience of the voters they are trying to persuade. The Nigerians who ration their commutes because transport fares have doubled, who have watched their farms disappear under the shadow of insecurity, and who wonder whether their children will inherit a country worth living in will deliver the only verdict that matters. Baba‑Ahmed has made his case. The RHGI has made theirs. The campaign has, in every sense that matters, already begun.
Stay tuned to Unuevbo TV for continuing coverage of the 2027 presidential contest and the clash of political narratives reshaping Nigeria's future.
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