By James Adamu
Festus Keyamo, Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, has declared that the 2027 presidential election will be little more than a coronation for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, adding that opposition parties are merely “trying their luck” in what he described as an already decided contest.
Keyamo, who has served as campaign spokesperson for two successive administrations, made the declaration on Wednesday night during an interview on TVC, where he also mounted a vigorous defence of the First Lady, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu, against critics who have lampooned her recent comments on supporting petty traders.
“I will tell you that 2027, as it is today now, there’s only one person who has the possibility to win, and that’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I’m being honest, not because I’m APC, but I’m just being realistic”, Keyamo stated.
“They know. We know. They are just trying their luck, but they know that it is an almost impossible task. So long as God gives long life and good health to the president, we are looking at a coronation, not an election. It’s a coronation,” he added.
The Minister, who boasted of an unbroken record as a campaign strategist, dismissed the opposition’s prospects with characteristic bluntness.
“Let me tell you. Let me tell you. Let me tell you. Like I told you, I’ve never led a campaign as a spokesperson. I failed. I have that record. Others I’ve led have failed. I have not,” he said.
On the mounting criticism of the administration’s economic reforms, Keyamo argued that the government had done “more than enough” to cushion the impact on ordinary Nigerians.
“The president has done more than enough,” he said. “However, it is this, you know, let me just be clear about this. In the, you know, season of politics, nobody listens to reason again, because people just want to get to power at all costs. So even if I make a valid point here, you people will make comedy and skits out of it, they’ll make memes out of it tomorrow, and all that, because they just want to rubbish everything that is going on.”
He insisted that the government was connecting with the people who mattered most – the vulnerable and the petty traders who, he said, genuinely appreciated the palliative interventions being rolled out.
“The people who we are connecting with, they appreciate us, it’s enough for us. If the elites, who think that the president, the first lady should distribute laptops to market women selling pepper, they continue that, they should continue to talk,” Keyamo said.
“By the day, on that day, when that market woman, who is selling akara and selling vegetable, she’s pressing APC, APC, APC, you should be pressing your laptop. We’ll be pressing your laptop. So we are not concerned about all the noise, like you said, we’re not. The government is connecting with those it wants to connect with,” the Minister said.
The Minister took particular umbrage at the social media ridicule that greeted the First Lady’s recent intervention, describing the skits and memes that followed as politically motivated distractions.
“The other day, the first lady talked about something affecting petty traders, everybody went on fire. And I started laughing, because it was just all comical. They were making skits out of it, making comedy out of it, making very, you know, sometimes misplaced anger out of it,” he said.
Keyamo noted that even the United States and European nations had resorted to direct cash transfers to citizens following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Government is not saying that this is what you give them forever. Government is not saying that it is this kind of rice you use to feed Nigerians forever. It’s just a stopgap measure to ensure that you still bring palliatives into the system. Even the biggest countries they look at, America, after COVID, they were bringing cash, small, small cash, door to door. Ask anybody in America and Europe. Government was delivering cash to doorsteps, small cash for people not to just, for people not to get so despondent and angry. They were giving cash door to door to their citizens. Go and ask,” he explained.
The Minister also challenged opposition figures who have mocked the administration’s focus on petty traders.
“They know what the First Lady said. They know what we are saying. They understand the empathy. They understand the importance of that. They are just deceiving ordinary people. That is all they are doing,” he said.
He asked: “Do you want to give laptop to market women selling tomatoes? To do what? Those ones should be left to undergraduates.”
Keyamo maintained that governance required addressing different strata of society according to their respective needs.
“So there are different strata of society. And when there is different strata of society, you must address each strata according to its own need. Have you seen a society that there is equilibrium in all strata, that there is no body at all, there is no middle class, upper middle class or high class? Have you seen one society? Address each one and try to lift each one out of its own and take to the next step. That’s really the whole importance of the purpose of government. Not to tell me that there is no body at all that does not need support of 200,000, 100,000 to lift their trade. Don’t tell me that,” he stated.
Keyamo, who expressed confidence that the administration’s grassroots connections would translate into electoral dividends, urged critics to wait until polling day.
“So in their lives, they should make skits and all that out of what I’m saying or the First Lady. It doesn’t concern us. On that day, on that day of voting, those people who appreciate government, just wait and see. They should not complain, no. Let them be doing skits and all that, and looking for laptop to give to market women, laptop to do ICT. When on that day, we vote coming, they should not complain,” he said.
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