The Democracy Watch Initiative (DWI) has dismissed claims by Dr Umar Ardo that Northern Nigeria has been sidelined under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, saying the region will rally behind the President’s re-election in 2027.
The group also rejected Ardo’s forecast that Tinubu would get less than 10 per cent of northern votes in 2027, describing it as baseless and driven by political frustration.
In a statement issued by its Deputy National Chairman, Hon. Musa Adam, DWI was reacting to comments made by Ardo during a Frontline radio programme in Ogun State.
Adam accused Ardo of trying to whip up regional sentiment and cause unnecessary alarm ahead of the 2027 elections.
DWI described Ardo as lacking the moral and political standing to speak for the North.
“We dismiss that interview in its entirety as the bitter lamentation of a serial political failure, a man whose only remaining relevance is unnecessary alarmism and self-serving propaganda,” Adam said.
“Dr Umar Ardo is in no moral or political position to speak for the North. He is a failed politician who has been rejected repeatedly by the very people he now claims to represent. In his own Adamawa State, for example, his governorship ambition collapsed woefully in 2023.
“He was roundly defeated at the polls. A man who could not win his own state, who could not deliver his own ward and LGA, has no right to tell northerners how and who to vote.”
Adam further accused Ardo of party-hopping, noting that he contested PDP governorship primaries multiple times, later joined the APC, returned to the PDP, and then moved to the SDP.
He also dismissed the League of Northern Democrats, LND, linked to Ardo, saying it lacked the electoral weight to dictate northern voting patterns.
The DWI chieftain rejected allegations that the Tinubu administration had Yorubanised federal appointments and favoured the South-West.
“The North remains fully represented at the highest levels: the Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima; the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu; ministers of strategic ministries are from the North; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas,” he said.
“Critical parastatals and security institutions have northerners in key positions. Federal character is being observed, and the North is not excluded.”
He faulted Ardo’s claim that budget releases were tied to regions, saying allocations follow due process, project readiness and statutory provisions.
“If Ardo has verifiable figures, let him publish them. But he has none. What he has is a bitterness that has consumed him since his electoral defeats,” Adam added.
DWI said northerners were already seeing benefits from the Renewed Hope Agenda through agricultural interventions, security operations, road and rail projects, and social investment programmes.
“His attempt to drag Kwara and Kogi into North-South is another diversion. The North Central is part of the North, and northerners are not so gullible as to be divided by a man who has never won an election,” Adam said.
“Ardo’s prediction that Tinubu will get less than 10 per cent of northern votes is a hallucination born of frustration. In 2023, President Tinubu won several northern states.
“In 2027, northerners will consolidate their support for him because they have seen a President who is resetting Nigeria’s economy for the better.”
He listed subsidy removal, exchange rate unification, tax reforms, student loans, the CNG initiative, and infrastructure spending as reforms that would benefit the North and the country at large.
“Northerners are not sheep. They cannot be herded by a man who has been rejected at the polls. They will not take instructions from a serial defector,” he said.
DWI urged Nigerians to reject the politics of division, blackmail and false statistics and said: “The North is ready to support President Tinubu to consolidate his Renewed Hope reforms. Ardo’s 10 per cent fantasy will remain what it is: a fantasy.”
