Former Labour Party vice-presidential candidate Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed has delivered one of the most politically explosive assessments yet of Nigeria’s 2027 presidential contest, declaring that none of the politicians seeking to unseat President Bola Ahmed Tinubu can improve the country, and specifically including his former running mate, Peter Obi.
Baba-Ahmed made the remarks in an interview on the Mic On Podcast hosted by Seun Okinbaloye and published over the weekend. His comments are particularly significant because they came from a politician who shared the Labour Party ticket with Obi in the 2023 presidential election and who was once among Obi’s most visible political allies.
The intervention also lands at a decisive moment in Nigeria’s political calendar. Presidential and National Assembly campaigns began on 19 August 2026, while the presidential election is scheduled for 16 January 2027. The opposition field has also undergone dramatic changes since 2023, with Obi now the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar heading the African Democratic Congress (ADC) ticket.
Baba-Ahmed’s statement therefore goes beyond a personal disagreement. It raises a larger question about whether Nigeria’s 2027 opposition is genuinely offering a new political direction — or simply rearranging familiar political actors under different party labels.
‘Tinubu should leave — but not to these people’
Asked what advice he would give Tinubu about his leadership of Nigeria, Baba-Ahmed offered a response that immediately placed him outside both the governing camp and the principal opposition camps.
“I will simply advise uncle (Tinubu) to please prepare to hand over and move away, but not to the people contesting against him because none of them will improve Nigeria.”
The significance of that statement is difficult to miss.
Baba-Ahmed is not defending Tinubu’s continued presidency. Instead, he is arguing that removing the incumbent is not, by itself, a solution to Nigeria’s problems.
When pressed on whether he meant the entire field of politicians challenging Tinubu, he broadened his criticism.
“All those people contesting against him too—they were all in bed together at some point or another.”
Then came the line likely to attract the greatest political attention:
“Including Peter Obi, I’m sorry to say.”
That qualification matters.
Baba-Ahmed was not merely attacking unnamed opposition politicians. He was explicitly disassociating himself from the idea that Obi represents the fundamental political break with Nigeria’s old establishment that many of Obi’s supporters have championed since 2022.
From running mates to political separation
The 2023 Obi-Baba-Ahmed ticket became one of the most important political movements of Nigeria’s recent electoral history.
Their Labour Party campaign finished third in the 2023 presidential election, behind Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party. Since then, however, the political partnership has unravelled dramatically.
Obi left the Labour Party, moved into the opposition realignment and eventually joined the NDC. In May 2026, the NDC formally unveiled him as its presidential candidate for 2027.
The NDC has subsequently built a ticket around Obi and former Kano State governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, with the party zoning its 2027 presidential ticket to the South for a single four-year term and signalling a return of the presidential ticket to the North in 2031.
That arrangement has added another layer to Baba-Ahmed’s criticism.
Kwankwaso has said Obi signed written agreements committing him to a single four-year presidential term if elected in 2027.
For the NDC, the arrangement is intended to demonstrate political balance and broaden the coalition behind Obi.
For Baba-Ahmed, however, the bigger question appears to be whether changing party platforms and negotiating power-sharing arrangements amounts to the “new Nigeria” Nigerians were promised.
Baba-Ahmed’s central argument: Nigeria needs a new political class
Baba-Ahmed challenged Obi’s political history as part of his argument.
He noted that Obi was previously a member of the Peoples Democratic Party when the PDP controlled the Federal Government and argued that political movements should not be described as revolutionary merely because politicians change parties.
“Tell me one politician who has never been in a ruling party. Tell me.”
There is an important distinction here.
Baba-Ahmed is making a political argument, not establishing an objective test for competence.
Being a former member of a ruling party does not, by itself, demonstrate that an individual cannot govern effectively. Nor does membership of an opposition party automatically establish political independence, competence or integrity.
But his intervention does expose one of the most uncomfortable problems facing Nigeria’s opposition: many of the politicians presenting themselves as alternatives to the APC have been part of the same political ecosystem for decades.
That criticism cannot simply be dismissed because it comes from Baba-Ahmed.
The current opposition landscape contains politicians who have occupied major offices under different governments and across different parties. Atiku, Obi, Kwankwaso and many other prominent figures have long political records that make it possible for critics to question whether Nigeria is witnessing genuine political renewal or merely a rotation of established elites.
‘I have never been in a ruling party’
Baba-Ahmed also sought to differentiate his own political history from that of Obi.
Responding to a question about his involvement in Nigerian politics and his service in the National Assembly, he argued that he had never belonged to a ruling party.
He explained that he had been associated with the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) when it was an opposition party and that he resigned before the CPC became part of the coalition that produced the APC.
“I have never been in a ruling party.”
He added:
“I never had an APC membership card.”
This is central to Baba-Ahmed’s attempt to establish political distance from the major contenders.
But it also exposes the limits of his argument.
Nigeria’s political system is not simply divided between politicians who have held membership cards of ruling parties and those who have not. Governance performance depends on institutional capacity, economic policy, security strategy, fiscal management, democratic accountability and the ability to build effective political coalitions.
In other words, political novelty is not automatically administrative competence.
That distinction will become increasingly important as the 2027 campaign intensifies.
Why Baba-Ahmed’s attack on Obi is particularly damaging
The political importance of the statement lies partly in who made it.
Baba-Ahmed was not a distant commentator. He was Obi’s running mate in 2023 and became one of the most recognisable figures associated with the Labour Party campaign.
His criticism therefore carries a different political weight from an attack by an APC spokesman or a rival candidate.
It comes from within the broader opposition movement.
That creates an uncomfortable question for Obi’s campaign: How does a candidate convince voters that he represents political renewal when one of his former closest political allies now argues that he belongs to the same establishment he seeks to replace?
The likely answer will have to go beyond party membership.
Obi’s campaign will need to demonstrate, in practical terms, what would be different about his government: its economic priorities, its approach to security, public spending, corruption, institutional reform, federal-state relations and job creation.
The more Baba-Ahmed repeats his criticism, the more pressure Obi may face to explain not simply why he should defeat Tinubu, but why Nigerians should believe he can fundamentally change the system.
The bigger problem for the opposition
Baba-Ahmed’s remarks come as the opposition itself remains fragmented despite years of calls for a united front against the APC.
Earlier in 2026, Baba-Ahmed himself dismissed the possibility of a single opposition presidential candidate as unrealistic.
He has since left the Labour Party and joined the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), describing the move as part of a broader effort to fix Nigeria rather than simply pursue a presidential ticket.
Meanwhile, Atiku is running on the ADC platform. The ADC has formally submitted Atiku and Rotimi Amaechi as its presidential and vice-presidential candidates, while the NDC is positioning Obi and Kwankwaso as its own ticket.
That means the anti-APC vote could once again confront the problem that damaged the opposition in 2023: multiple major candidates competing for overlapping pools of voters.
Baba-Ahmed’s latest intervention risks deepening that fragmentation.
But there is another possibility.
His criticism could force the opposition to address an issue it has often avoided: What exactly makes its proposed alternative different from the political establishment it criticises?
A different threat to Tinubu?
At first glance, Baba-Ahmed’s comments may appear to benefit Tinubu because they attack the president’s major challengers.
That would be too simplistic.
Baba-Ahmed also explicitly said Tinubu should leave office.
“Tinubu should leave the stage.”
He has also previously criticised the administration, including its handling of insecurity and the state of opposition politics. In April 2026, while announcing his departure from Labour, he argued that Nigerians had yet to see meaningful progress on security and the economy and criticised what he regarded as attempts to weaken opposition parties.
His position therefore cannot easily be categorised as pro-Tinubu.
Instead, it represents a third line of argument: Tinubu should go, but the alternatives currently on offer are not good enough.
That is potentially more disruptive than a conventional opposition attack.
It challenges both sides of the political contest simultaneously.
The 2027 question is becoming bigger than Tinubu versus Obi
Nigeria’s 2027 election is increasingly shaping up as a contest not merely over who should occupy Aso Rock, but over whether voters believe any major political faction can break with the country’s established governing culture.
Tinubu’s APC is presenting itself as the incumbent administration with a record it can defend.
Obi’s NDC is seeking to mobilise voters around an alternative political agenda and a promise of change.
Atiku’s ADC is presenting another opposition route.
And politicians such as Baba-Ahmed are attempting to carve out political space by arguing that the established opposition figures are themselves part of the problem.
That makes his latest intervention bigger than a quarrel between former allies.
It is a challenge to the entire language of Nigerian opposition politics.
For Obi, the immediate danger is not necessarily that Baba-Ahmed will persuade large numbers of voters to abandon the NDC. The bigger danger is that the accusation becomes part of the defining narrative of the campaign: that Nigeria is being asked to choose among politicians from the same political class rather than between fundamentally different governing philosophies.
For Tinubu, there is an equally important warning.
Baba-Ahmed has not endorsed his re-election. He has said the president should leave.
So the president cannot safely interpret the statement as an opposition endorsement of the APC.
At its core, Baba-Ahmed’s argument is much harsher: Nigeria needs a political alternative, but he does not believe the current front-runners constitute one.
Whether Nigerian voters agree will be one of the central questions of the 2027 presidential race.
And with campaigning already under way, the battle over that question has begun.
What Baba-Ahmed’s statement could mean for 2027
The immediate political implications are threefold.
First, it could intensify tensions between the former 2023 Labour Party running mates and expose further fractures within the wider opposition movement.
Second, it gives Baba-Ahmed and the PRP an opportunity to position themselves as an alternative to both the APC government and the established opposition figures.
Third, it places additional pressure on Obi, Atiku and other challengers to explain precisely what separates their programmes from the political establishment they have spent years navigating.
Ultimately, the most consequential part of Baba-Ahmed’s intervention may not be his rejection of Peter Obi.
It may be his underlying question:
After decades of political defections, alliances and recycled leadership, where is the genuinely new political force capable of changing Nigeria?
That is a question the 2027 campaign cannot afford to avoid.
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