RE: Why I Will NOT Stand With Tinubu in 2027: A Response from Tarr, Mathias
Ahmad Sajoh deserves credit for one thing: he has openly disclosed why he intends to stand with Bola Tinubu in 2027. But disclosure does not cure selective facts, and political loyalty does not transform questionable arguments into compelling ones.
Sajoh’s essay asks Nigerians to admire the architecture of political power, celebrate macroeconomic statistics and applaud reform – while millions of citizens are asking a much simpler question:
Can I afford to eat? Can I pay my rent? Can I transport my children to school? Can I pay their fees? Can I afford electricity? Can my salary still buy what it bought three years ago?
That is the Nigeria that must be judged in 2027 – not Nigeria on a spreadsheet.
With due respect to Ahmad, here is the other side of the story.
- “BUILDING PEOPLE” OR BUILDING A POLITICAL FEUDAL STRUCTURE?
Sajoh praises Tinubu’s political bench – Farmola, Ambode and Sanwo-Olu – as evidence of a leader who builds people.
But he leaves out the question that matters most:
What happens when the people Tinubu builds become independent enough to disagree with him?
When Akinwunmi Ambode sought a second term as Lagos governor, it was not Lagos voters who rejected him. His political structure did.
Tinubu subsequently explained the conflict in terms of Ambode becoming a “bad party man,” while Sanwo-Olu has openly acknowledged the political debt he owes to Tinubu.
This is the distinction Sajoh must confront. There is a difference between mentoring leaders and creating a political patronage system in which political survival depends upon loyalty to the patron.
A leader’s greatest legacy is not the dependency syndrome he creates around him or the number of politicians who owe him their careers. It is the number of institutions and leaders capable of surviving without him.
Atiku’s model is different. The American University of Nigeria, Gotel and other institutions associated with him are not political appointments. They are institutions that continue to operate irrespective of whether Atiku occupies political office.
That is institution-building vs political patronage.
- Gotel VS. TVC: THE CONTEXT SAJOH CONVENIENTLY LEAVES OUT
Sajoh’s comparison between Gotel and TVC is equally incomplete.
These institutions operate in different environments, markets and political circumstances. TVC operates from Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial, financial, political and advertising capital. Gotel operates from Yola, in an entirely different commercial environment.
So, what exactly is being compared?
If proximity to political and commercial power is itself an advantage, then one cannot use the resulting scale as automatic proof of superior entrepreneurship.
The real test of institution-building is whether an institution can survive changing political circumstances, remain professionally credible and serve society.
Political proximity like being National Leader of APC since 2015 and president since 2023 can amplify an institution you own. It does not, however, by itself, prove the superiority of your business acumen.
- PARTY CONSISTENCY: AD TO APC IS ALSO POLITICAL MIGRATION
Sajoh lists Atiku’s political journey:
PDP → AC → PDP → APC → PDP → ADC.
Fair enough.
But he then presents Tinubu’s journey from AD to AC, ACN and APC as one continuous progressive lineage, as if changing political platforms ceases to be political migration when the parties are historically connected.
That is selective reasoning.
Both men have changed platforms. The more important question is why.
Atiku’s departure from the PDP in 2006 followed his political confrontation with the Obasanjo presidency. His subsequent departure in 2013 occurred amid a major internal crisis over party leadership and democratic practice.
One may disagree with his choices. But reducing Atiku’s movements to opportunism while portraying Tinubu’s movements as pure ideological consistency is not an intellectually balanced comparison.
Consistency without internal democracy is not necessarily principle. Sometimes it is simply control.
- FUEL SUBSIDY: SAJOH CONFUSES COMMERCIAL NNPC WITH GOVERNMENT POLICY
Sajoh argues that Atiku’s proposal to make crude available to domestic refineries below international market price violates the Petroleum Industry Act.
That argument is far too categorical.
The PIA requires NNPC Limited to operate commercially and without recourse to government funds. But that does not mean the government is prohibited from designing a transparent, budgeted and targeted fiscal intervention to support strategic domestic refining.
The distinction is fundamental.
The government can appropriate funds for strategic sectors. It does so in agriculture, electricity and other areas. The question is not whether the government can intervene; the question is how the intervention is structured, funded, capped and monitored.
Atiku’s proposal is essentially:
SUBSIDY FOLLOWS THE BARREL.
Instead of subsidising imported petroleum products and creating opportunities for middlemen, the government can support eligible domestic refineries through transparent crude-feedstock arrangements tied to verified production, domestic supply, volume limits, pricing conditions and a defined fiscal ceiling.
That is fundamentally different from an opaque subsidy regime.
And Sajoh’s practical argument – that cheaper domestic petroleum somehow would not benefit places such as Mubi, Ganye and Michika, must be tested against reality.
Since subsidy removal, petrol prices have surged and transportation costs have multiplied. The result has not been greater affordability for remote communities.
A reform that makes the spreadsheet look better while making the journey from Mubi to Abuja unaffordable deserves scrutiny, not applause.
- FOOD VS. HEADLINES: CITIZENS DO NOT PURCHASE “HEADLINE INFLATION”
This is perhaps the biggest weakness in the argument for Tinubu’s economic record.
Sajoh points to falling headline inflation.
Fine.
But Nigerians do not go to the market and purchase “headline inflation.”
They purchase food.
They buy rice, yam, beans, garri, meat, bread and cooking oil. They pay rent, transport fares, school fees, electricity bills, medical bills and communication costs.
Therefore, the real test of economic management is not simply whether a statistical indicator has moved downward. It is whether household purchasing power is improving.
Where food inflation remains severe, families remain under extraordinary pressure.
And when states such as Adamawa experience some of the country’s highest inflationary pressures, Sajoh’s argument becomes even more difficult to sustain.
The irony is impossible to ignore:
A son of Adamawa is asking Nigerians to celebrate macroeconomic improvement while households in his own state are struggling with the cost of living.
You cannot eat GDP.
You cannot cook foreign reserves.
You cannot pay school fees with fiscal statistics.
And you certainly cannot tell a hungry family that its suffering is acceptable because a macroeconomic chart is moving in the right direction.
- THE LIMITS OF FOREIGN RESERVES
Rising foreign reserves are welcome. Nobody should deny that.
But reserves are a means, not the final objective of economic policy.
What does an increase in reserves mean to a worker whose real wages have contracted?
What does it mean to a family facing soaring electricity tariffs?
What does it mean to a trader whose transportation costs have exploded?
What does it mean to a student whose parents can barely afford tuition?
Foreign reserves are important because they support external stability, imports and confidence in the economy.
But they do not automatically put food on the table.
The government must ultimately explain how macroeconomic stabilisation translates into household prosperity.
Otherwise, we risk creating an economy that is increasingly impressive to economists while becoming increasingly unbearable to ordinary citizens.
- REVENUE REALITIES: NOMINAL GAINS VS. DEVALUED PURCHASING POWER
Sajoh also points to increased allocations from the Federation Account as evidence of progress.
Again, the nominal increase is real.
But nominal figures can conceal economic pain.
If a state receives more naira while the naira itself buys significantly less, the increase does not necessarily represent greater real prosperity. It is plain MONEY ILLUSION.
More depreciated naira is not the same thing as more wealth.
True structural federalism requires:
- genuine fiscal autonomy and stronger subnational productive capacity;
- devolved security and policing structures;
- resource control accompanied by regional production incentives;
- stronger local economies capable of generating jobs and revenue; and
- infrastructure that enables states to produce rather than merely wait for monthly allocations.
Inflating state balances through currency depreciation is transactional distribution.
It is not economic restructuring.
- THE REAL QUESTION FOR 2027
This debate should therefore move beyond the personalities of Tinubu and Atiku.
The real question is:
What governance model will make Nigeria work for Nigerians?
One model places considerable emphasis on political networks, loyalty, centralised control and macroeconomic indicators.
The alternative asks whether the government can build independent institutions, expand production, stabilise purchasing power and deliberately reduce the cost of living.
Nigeria needs an economy where its oil is an advantage, not a punishment.
We need domestic refining.
We need affordable energy.
We need productive agriculture.
We need jobs for young Nigerians.
We need a stable currency.
We need fiscal federalism that allows states to produce rather than merely distribute.
And above all, we need an economic system in which growth is felt in the kitchen, the classroom, the workshop, the farm and the marketplace.
CONCLUSION: INSTITUTIONAL STRENGTH OVER GODFATHERISM
Sajoh’s case ultimately asks Nigerians to trust the political record of Tinubu.
I ask Nigerians to examine the consequences of his economic policies.
He sees a leader who builds people.
I see a political structure in which loyalty can sometimes become the currency of political survival.
He sees reform.
I ask whether the reform is delivering affordable food, transport, electricity, housing and opportunity.
He sees rising reserves.
I ask whether the Nigerian worker can buy more with his salary.
He sees increased Federation Account allocations.
I ask whether the ordinary citizen can actually afford a better life.
And that is where our disagreement lies.
Nigeria cannot eat political loyalty.
It cannot survive on impressive statistics alone.
It cannot pay school fees with foreign reserves.
It cannot feed families with GDP growth.
And it cannot build a prosperous future by merely distributing more depreciated naira.
What Nigeria needs is production, purchasing power, institutional independence, accountable leadership and policies that make hthe country’s enormous natural and human resources work for its people.
Tinubu may have built a formidable political structure.
But Nigeria needs something bigger:
formidable economic institutions.
That is why my position is not born of hatred, tribalism or personal animosity.
It is a question of priorities.
I will not stand with Tinubu in 2027 because political loyalty cannot substitute for economic stability, and macroeconomic statistics cannot substitute for human welfare.
The 2027 election must therefore not be a referendum on who has the strongest political machine.
It must be a referendum on a more fundamental question:
WHO CAN MAKE NIGERIA AFFORDABLE, PRODUCTIVE AND PROSPEROUS AGAIN?
For me, that is the argument that matters.
