Former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has said President Bola Tinubu will come a "lucky third" in the 202 presidential election.

According to him, this is because Tinubu's disapproval rating his hitting the roof across Nigeria.

El-Rufai made the prediction when he appeared on Arise TV on Monday.

"I have mentioned some time ago that in many parts of the country, particularly in the southeast and the North President Tinubu has a 91% disapproval rating. Even in Lagos, he has a 78% disapproval rating. Okay, it's a scientific fall, and in some states in the southwest, he's doing a bit better like in Ondo and Ekiti, where he's doing better than a 78% disapproval rating, but there is no way he's doing better than 50%, even in the southwest; the guy is gone. He has performed miserably. The economy has tanked. The security architecture has failed. There are no clear trade, industrial and investment policies. Everything is going wrong. They are raising lots of revenues, but we don't know where the revenues are going because there are no results," he said.

Criticising the Tinubu administration, El-Rufai said it is worse than the immediate past administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.

"If you asked me in 2022 or 2023 when we are campaigning that things will ever be this bad, I would, I would, I would say that you are, you are mentally ill.

"Why is there no improvement in 2024 over 2.2 million Nigerians were abducted. 615,000 were killed. Is Nigeria at war? These numbers are worse than the eight years of Buhari in one year. This is foreign is data from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics. So it's government data. I'm not coaching something out of the air. So for that 100 billion that goes out every month from the Federation account, without appropriation by the National Assembly, by the way, without appropriation by the state assemblies, because part of the money belongs to the states, each state assembly is supposed to appropriate that part. So the entire deduction and spending expenditure is unconstitutional. It's an impeachable offence, but it has been going on for more than 15 months from the last time I checked. So, where has that 1.5 trillion gone? What is it being used for? Why is the security situation just getting worse? Why is the government asking communities to protect themselves?"

When pressed on whether he has ambitions to run for office in 2027, El-Rufai stated that his goal is to make the country better.

He said, "I have not made any decision about what position to run for. I'm thinking about it. We are discussing with many people; even in the coalition, we discussed that, but I have not made any decision. For me, priority number one, okay, is to get a person who will improve the quality of governance in Nigeria. If the governance, if the quality of governance in Nigeria, is improved, I will thrive. I will do well, okay? I have an address, I have a profession, and I have capabilities. I don't need to be in politics. I don't need to be in public service to thrive. So the first order of business is to have a country that is well run, where the resources are applied, where people have a great opportunity to realise their potential. So for me, that's number one. Okay, that person also should be able to defeat President Tinubu because President Tinubu is determined to make this election look as if it is settled. It is not. They are giving the impression through defections and so on. as I've said before, and I'll say it again, I have looked at the numbers. I've looked at the trends of elections. President Tinubu has no pathway to win. He cannot win. In fact, he will be lucky if he was third."

ASA