The pioneer Interim Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Bisi Akande, has warned against returning the Peoples Democratic Party to power in 2027.
He noted that returning the PDP to power would cause more suffering for Nigerians.
Akande said the proposal by the opposition parties to form a coalition and dislodge the ruling party at the federal level would not offer Nigerians respite from the current hardship.
Akande, who spoke to journalists in Ila Orangun, Osun State, on Saturday as part of activities marking his 85th birthday anniversary, was responding to a question regarding the plan by the opposition parties to form a coalition with the intent to defeat the ruling APC at the national level.
It would be recalled that the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 general elections, Atiku Abubakar, had offered to lead a coalition against the APC in the 2027 election.
But Akande, who led a coalition of opposition parties as the interim national chairman of the APC, which defeated incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 general election, was of the opinion that returning the PDP to power would mean a continuation of suffering for Nigerians.
He said, “If the PDP was rejected and the same PDP coalesced again and people said, Okay, we will go back to it, the people would go back to their suffering. The PDP was defeated because it had no clue.
“APC comes from a very difficult, weak, and dilapidated political and economic foundation called Nigeria. In driving, you are driving, and suddenly, maybe something happens in front of you and you have to turn. Whether you do it by U-turn or you do it another way, there will be screeches.
“Those are the screeches you are seeing now in repairing damages that have been done over the years. We are talking of damages done from 1960 to 2015, and no matter what, Buhari too was not perfect.
“The way he managed the dilapidated arrangement would not be the same way Bola Tinubu would manage it because they don’t come from the same background, even if they are twins. Even their advisers will not be the same. So the effects won’t be the same on society itself because society itself is weak already.”
Commenting further on the way out of the current economic hardship in the country, Akande said the desired change in fortune would depend on Nigerians and not the leadership in charge of the affairs of the nation.
He said, “A society that doesn’t know how to work is the foundation upon which you want to build, whether what Buhari called change or what Bola Tinubu called Renewed Hope. It depends on society.
“It would have been easier if Buhari or Bola Tinubu ruled in Europe or America or China. Those societies believe in work. Whether you reject APC, readopt PDP, or stay with APC, your fate can only change with you as a citizen, not with a leader.”