Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the 2027 election, says he has evidence that President Bola Tinubu is 90 years old.
The former vice-president made the claim in an interview with the BBC while explaining why he believes he is qualified to contest the presidency.
“I have a president who is 90 years old now, and who is sick. I am healthy; I am strong. So why would I not make my services available to my fellow countrymen?” Atiku asked.
“I have evidence that he is [90], and I will present it in court.”
Speaking about his political history, Atiku said it was his constitutional right to contest the presidency.
The ADC candidate said he had contested for governor four times but was repeatedly disqualified by the military authorities overseeing Nigeria’s transition to democracy.
“I ran for governor four times, because at that position, the people who were in charge of Nigeria’s transition to democracy were military, and I was so anti-military. Any time I won, they would disqualify me. The last was when there was even an attempt on my life, and I went into exile,” he said
“I’ve never found anything easy in my life. There is nothing new there. So, because I’m contesting the presidency two or three times… I mean, that’s not anything unusual in my life — in my political life.
“I have the experience, I have the competence, I have the patriotism. So why would I not make all this available to the service of my country?”
On the country’s insecurity, Atiku attributed the persistence of the crisis to the “irresponsibility of government”.
He said the government had failed to pay adequate attention to the country’s defence and security needs.
“I remember when we were in office, I told the president that, look, we are over 200 million people and yet we have less than 200,000 policemen,” he said.
“Egypt that has about 80 million had one million policemen on the streets. And therefore, there is peace there.
“Believe me, within one year, we can control this insurgency and insecurity that is all over the place.”
