2027: To rig election now is very difficult, but Tinubu will score over 12 Million votes – Ayodele Fayose

Former Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has said it is now very difficult to rig elections in Nigeria, while predicting that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will secure 12 million votes in the 2027 presidential election.

Fayose made the remarks on Tuesday while featuring on Channels Television’s Politics Today.

The former governor, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is among the opposition party’s prominent figures backing Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), for the 2027 election.

Fayose was recently appointed Chairman of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) Board by Tinubu.

Speaking on the programme, Fayose said, “Politics is not a tea party. Asiwaju will have 12 million votes. Go and write it down. You know to rig election is now difficult. Very, very difficult.”

On the controversy surrounding the “Rainbow Coalition” associated with Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, Fayose said the minister and APC governors were supporting Tinubu through different political approaches.

Wike and the APC governors have disagreed publicly over the coalition, with the governors saying they would not support political arrangements capable of weakening the APC or creating competing interests within the party.

Wike, however, has maintained that his priority is to mobilise support for Tinubu’s re-election and has said he never promised that the PDP would not field candidates in governorship and legislative elections.

Fayose said the key issue should be whether the coalition could deliver votes for Tinubu, particularly in Rivers State.

“I sincerely don’t want to join issues on these two sides. These are issues of simply everybody exercising their interest in the system,” he said.

According to Fayose, if Wike’s coalition succeeds in mobilising votes for Tinubu in Rivers State, the disagreement should not be viewed as a problem for the President.

“If Rainbow works for Wike in Rivers, and it can bring results, that’s all the President wants,” he said.

Fayose argued that Wike’s political influence could potentially help candidates in states where he decides to deploy the coalition, but noted that the minister had not attempted to establish the arrangement across every state.

He said political strategies could differ from one state to another depending on local interests and circumstances.

“The method that works for A might not work for B,” Fayose said.

The former governor also dismissed suggestions that the disagreement between Wike and the APC governors posed a threat to Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid.

He said the two sides remained united in their support for the President despite their differences over how that support should be organised.

“This controversy has nothing to do with the winning of the President. In fact, it makes it much better,” Fayose said.

He noted that both Wike and the governors represented influential political interests and said disagreements were expected whenever competing interests and political ambitions were involved.

“You should expect this. The moment there is interest, power struggle, interest, you should expect all this,” he said.

Fayose maintained that the disagreement had not fundamentally altered the political support around Tinubu.

“In my understanding, they all say the same thing in different ways,” he said, while acknowledging that individual political interests and ego could also shape the positions taken by political actors.

Follow Very Nigerian WhatsApp Channel
For Verified Breaking News, Exclusive Reports, Trending Stories, And Real-time Updates.
CLICk HERE TO JOIN!