…cites govs’ support, Northern acceptance
Nigeria’s Ambassador-designate to Mexico, Reno Omokri, has declared that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has already secured victory in the 2027 presidential election, predicting that the President will win by a “very wide majority.”
Omokri based his prediction on what he described as Tinubu’s stronger political position ahead of the 2027 poll, compared with the circumstances surrounding the 2023 election.
He spoke in a conversation with Seun Okinbaloye on Channels Television’s Politics Today, arguing that Tinubu had since consolidated his political base, increased the number of governors supporting his administration and gained wider acceptance, particularly in Northern Nigeria.
“The best predictor of future events is past events,” Omokri said.
“If this president could win the 2023 election with just, I think he had 19 governors at that time, he had a hostile government at the centre, he had the naira policy that was designed to ridicule him, to attack him, and then he had an opposition that said that, okay, they were going to win, and yet he won.
“How much more now that he’s an incumbent, he has about 30 governors?”
The ambassador-designate also pointed to recent political rallies in Katsina and Kano as evidence of the President’s growing political support in the North.
“Tell me about his acceptance in Northern Nigeria. Have you seen his rallies? Did you see the rally that just held in Katsina? Did you see the one that held in Kano? Did you see the numbers?” he asked.
When Okinbaloye questioned whether the size of political rallies could be used as a reliable measure of electoral support, Omokri cited what he described as shifting political alignments involving governors in states associated with two potential challengers of Tinubu — former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi.
“The president’s biggest rival probably will be Peter Obi and Waziri Atiku Abubakar,” he said.
“In Adamawa State, the present governor, the incumbent governor, and then the immediate past governor are for the president. They are mobilising for the president. They are holding rallies for the president.”
Omokri also cited Anambra State, Obi’s home state, arguing that the state governor’s support for Tinubu was politically significant.
“In Anambra State, where Peter Obi comes from, the governor is for the president. He’s mobilising for the president,” he said.
The ambassador-designate further argued that some of the factors that influenced voting patterns in 2023 would not necessarily have the same impact in 2027.
According to him, the APC’s Muslim-Muslim ticket generated what he described as “fear-based” and protest votes among some Christian voters in the last election.
“There were protest votes because people had never seen in Nigeria a Muslim-Muslim ticket. So there was a lot of fear-based votes by Christians who thought that, okay, well, we’re going to be having a government that’s going to be anti-Christian,” he said.
Omokri argued that such concerns had been weakened by Tinubu’s subsequent engagements with Christian communities, citing the President’s attendance at the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV in Rome.
“We’ve had Christian presidents who never did that under Yakubu Gowon,” he said.
The ambassador-designate ultimately predicted a decisive victory for Tinubu in the next presidential election.
“Nigerians have fared well under this administration. So that protest vote is going to disappear. The president is going to win by a very wide majority in 2027,” Omokri declared.
