President Bola Tinubu has declared that he will not make it easy for the opposition to unseat him in the 2027 general election, describing the coming political contest as a fight to the finish.
Speaking on Tuesday while receiving members of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, the President said he would defend his mandate through democratic means and insisted that politics is a contest where every participant has an equal opportunity.
Those who would take power from me will try. They will try. All is fair in politics, and there is equal opportunity.
I will not offer them a red carpet. I will not offer them the leash to tie me at home.
We will wrestle each other to the finishing point. That is the truth. That is fair in politics.
Tinubu also told the bishops that the economic reforms introduced by his administration over the past three years were beginning to produce positive results, citing the uninterrupted academic calendar as one of the visible gains Nigerians could appreciate.
Addressing the issue of returning mission schools to their original owners, the President recalled that he restored mission schools to the Catholic Church during his tenure as Governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007. He said Cardinal Anthony Okogie could attest to the decision but stressed that responsibility for such matters now rests with state governments rather than the Federal Government.
The schools are in the states. Preach to the governors of your states. They do the job. There is no need for a constitutional amendment. That is part of democracy. Choice.
On national unity and security, Tinubu described Nigeria’s challenges as longstanding but expressed confidence that the country would overcome them through collective effort.
The security situation is what it is. We do not have another country but Nigeria. Our founding fathers left us a nation, and we owe it to future generations to build a country of unity, stability and prosperity.
The delegation of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, led by Archbishop Matthew Man Oso Ndagoso, concluded its meeting with the President shortly after 5 pm and departed the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
