…says governors find Tinubu better option than Atiku, Obi

Ahead the 2027 elections, Former Kaduna Central Senator, Shehu Sani, has said the main reason governors of the opposition parties in country were declaring their support for President Bola Tinubu was for political survival.

 

Sani mentioned Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun, Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra, and Governor Alex Otti of Abia as opposition politicians who had weighed their options before declaring their support for Tinubu in the forthcoming elections.

 

He disclosed this yesterday while featuring on a current affairs programme on Eagle 102.5 FM, Ilese-Ijebu, Ogun State.

 

The former senator insisted that the three governors decided to back Tinubu because they perceived him as a safer option among the presidential candidates as they could not see better options within the opposition parties.

 

“If you are a politician, you look at both sides of what will be better for your present and also for your future. And strategically, what will also be easier for your people.”

 

“These opposition governors, like Otti of Labour, Soludo of APGA, and Adeleke of Accord, they have weighed the two options, and they have seen that they are safer and better identifying with Asiwaju,” he added.

 

Sani claimed that Soludo cannot throw his weight behind Atiku Abubakar because that latter has few people that can support and vote for him in Anambra and aligning with Peter Obi would cage him

 

“Peter Obi is also not a member of his own party. But he looks at the wider acceptability in terms of the whole country,” he said.

 

The ex-Senator said that

Obi’s popularity had reduced in southeast unlike in 2023, saying that the reason Otti might find it difficult to support him ahead 2027.

 

“What is the ranking of Peter in North-West, North-Central, North-East, South-South, and South-Western part of Nigeria? So, he is taking Abia to the mainstream,” Sani stated.

 

He opined that Adeleke faces similar situation, stressing that while he won last governorship election in Osun with 511,000 votes on the platform of Accord party, he is also aware that the state’s voting pattern in presidential election could different.

 

“He(Adeleke) has won his election, and Tinubu has stopped any form of interference to tamper with that,” Sani said, citing the President’s intervention in the EFCC freezing of Osun’s account”.

 

Sani described the relationship between Adeleke and Tinubu as tit for that, saying both of them needed each other reason for the unfreezing of Osun’s account before the election.

 

“You must secure your seat first. You must secure your state first before you think of the next thing to do,” he added.