Nigerians have taken to social media rejecting President Bola Tinubu appeal for a second term and demanding he confess any links to past drug related matters and certificate issues before asking for more time.
Nigerians on X and Facebook said hiring the London based economics newspaper The Economist to package his image and claim he may still win despite public dislike will not save him. They insisted he should confess then go home and rest.
They insisted he should confess then go home and rest. They also warned him that any plot to rig the 2027 election is already exposed and that what they are asking is a free fair and honest credible election. They said Tinubu has brought nothing but shame to the country.
Tinubu Must Go protests have begun taking over the country with chants and messages spreading to states as anger grows over living costs and hardship.
Tinubu who is the All Progressives Congress candidate for the 2027 election has asked Nigerians to give him another term in office so he can correct past abnormalities that have held the country back for years.
He said earlier leaders left deep faults and missed chances that his team is now trying to put right. He urged people not to lose hope and said peace and development are slowly returning.
The message fits words he sent through House of Representatives Speaker Tajudeen Abbas at a special prayer session in the National Mosque in Abuja in late September.
That event marked preparations for Nigeria 66th Independence anniversary. Through the speaker Tinubu said the mistakes and missed opportunities of past administrations are being corrected now. He added that Nigeria is on the right path with light at the end of the tunnel and that citizens have already finished the hard sacrifices needed for the country to grow strong again. He asked for more time so the government can come back and finish the work it started.
In his October 1 Independence Day address Tinubu said four years cannot erase what built up over generations. He described the early reforms including the end of fuel subsidy and the joining of exchange rates as painful medicine for old sicknesses in the economy. He claimed growth above four percent lower inflation stronger reserves and less oil theft as signs of progress. He said the age of hard reform is over and the age of shared prosperity has begun. He warned against going back to old subsidy habits.
Many Nigerians on Social media posts called him a drug baron and certificate forger and warned that giving a criminal a second chance would be dangerous after the first term. Users wrote that Nigerians have already suffered enough hardship insecurity and high living costs and that the ballot box in 2027 will end the current administration. Some said once bitten twice shy.
Accounts including that of Marian Odiete stated that Nigeria and Nigerians have rejected him and that Tinubu must go. Critics added that foreign packaging by The Economist which recently wrote that public anger alone may not remove him because of a divided opposition changes nothing. The Presidency rejected the magazine assessment as intellectual fraud and said reforms remain irreversible.
Opposition figures have raised the certificate issues in court. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the African Democratic Congress filed a suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja seeking to disqualify Tinubu from the 2027 election over an alleged forged National Youth Service Corps discharge certificate.
The plaintiffs said the certificate submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission bears the name Tinubu Bola Adekunle rather than Bola Ahmed Tinubu. They claim the document was not obtained by him and that the same certificate was submitted in connection with both the 2023 and 2027 elections.
A group called the Centre for Reform and Public Advocacy also filed a suit in Kano asking the court to declare the Chicago State University certificate presented to the electoral body as forged and to order his disqualification. The group argued that Tinubu never attended Government College Lagos as claimed because the school was established in 1974 four years after he allegedly graduated and that he does not possess a valid secondary school certificate.
The drug related claims centre on a 1993 United States civil forfeiture case in which about 460000 dollars linked to accounts associated with Tinubu was forfeited after investigators alleged the funds came from heroin trafficking proceeds connected to a network run by Chicago based figures Adegboyega Mueez Akande and Abiodun Agbele.
Questions about the Chicago State University diploma first arose in 2023 litigation when the school told a United States court that the result certificate he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission did not emanate from them and that they could not authenticate it or say whether it was genuine or forged. The All Progressives Congress has rejected the allegations and said the National Youth Service Corps has never denied issuing the certificate. No court has yet ruled that any certificate was forged.
The drug related claims centre on a 1993 United States civil forfeiture case in which about 460000 dollars linked to accounts associated with Tinubu was forfeited after investigators alleged the funds came from heroin trafficking proceeds connected to a network run by Chicago based figures Adegboyega Mueez Akande and Abiodun Agbele.
Tinubu was never criminally charged or convicted in the matter. The case was a civil action against the funds themselves rather than a criminal prosecution against him personally. It was settled and closed with prejudice in September 1993. Some critics have referred to alleged FBI records connected to the heroin investigation and noted that lawyers were hired to oppose the release of those records despite Nigerians emanding for the release. Opposition groups continue to reference the records as part of their argument against a second term while some supporters say the attacks are distractions from his reforms. Public anger over economic hardship and insecurity has driven the visible rejection of his request for more time.
