Solomon Dalung, a former youth and sports minister and a prominent ADC figure, has said he believes President Bola Tinubu would lose to former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar in the 2027 presidential race.

On Politics Today, Dalung—who leads the ADC Presidential Campaign’s Mandate Protection Directorate—said Tinubu would be defeated even if he took control of the party’s national secretariat and prevented it from campaigning.

He characterized Atiku as the country’s sole politician with a nationwide political network, which he said traces back to the late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua.

Dalung further alleged that the 12 million votes linked to the late President Muhammadu Buhari had shifted to Atiku. He pointed to Buhari’s wife visiting the former vice-president at his Abuja home as evidence.

He said, “I am as confident as I am, as events are unfolding, that Tinubu, even if he will take over the ADC secretariat and stop ADC from campaigning, he cannot defeat Atiku Abubakar in 2027.

“The reason is very simple. Atiku Abubakar is the only politician in Nigeria who has a national structure. He inherited the structure of the late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, because he is a political product of General Yar’Adua.

“And than that, of the General Muhammadu Buhari’s 12 million votes, of course, last month or thereabouts, you saw when the wife of the late president visited Atiku in his residence in Abuja, the message she took was for any politician to know, is that the 12 million votes have been successfully transferred.

“We have had a phone call from the grave of Buhari that we should vote Atiku. Therefore, there is much momentum for them to win.”

ASA