2027: “I Prefer a-Tinubu Presidency To an-Atiku Presidency – Babachir Lawal

By Adesina Soyooye

“For Tinubu and Atiku, it is like a choice between a devil and a devil. So, I will choose a lesser devil (Tinubu). Even among devils, there are categories.”

A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Babachir Lawal, has said that if, per chance, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is elected President, he would be worse than President Bola Tinubu.

Atiku, Vice President during the President Olusegun Obasanjo Government is the Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC.  He was elected after the Party’s Primary, beating a former  Governor of Rivers State who was, also, Transportation Minister under late President Mohammadu Buhari, and Mr Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, an accomplished economist, banker and entrepreneur, to a distant second and third places respectively.

Both Amaechi and Hayatu-Deen rejected the result of the primary and dismissed it as a product of rigging and corruption, but the two stayed on as members of  the party.

However, Lawal, SGF under Buhari before he was removed from office, refused to stay on in the Party. He resigned. And since his resignation, he has not stopped from attacking Atiku. He has condemned, strongly, the process which threw Atiku up, called him an ethnic and religious bigot, and advised the ADC to remove the former VP as its Presidential Candidate if the party hopes to contest against Tinubu in 2027.

While Atiku has pushed back on Lawal’s comments, and accused him of blackmail because he, Lawal, was not allowed to influence the outcome of the Presidential Primary in favour of his prefered Candidate, Lawal, in an interview, Monday, on Channels Television doubled down on his attack on Atiku.

Speaking during the interview with Seun Okinbaloye, he said Atiku’s Presidency, if he wins, will be worse than that of President Bola Tinubu – a President and Presidency he has always strongly criticised.

Given a choice between a-Tinubu Presidency and an-Atiku Presidency in 2027, Lawal said he would choose Tinubu. He, however, compared it to choosing between one devil and another devil, and said he would choose a lesser devil – a- Tinubu Presidency.

Asked to choose between Atiku and Hayatu-Deen, Lawal said there is no comparison there. He chose Hayatu-Deen, and said Atiku was not in same class as Hayatu-Deen; that the two are not even in the same sea, not to talk about the same  boat.

Lawal: “I said it that if it must be, therefore, a choice between Atiku and Tinubu, I believe that Bola Tinubu’s presidency, as bad as it is now, on a comparative level, Tinubu would be an excellent President compared to what Atiku would plunge us into.

“When you are between the devil and the devil and you must go somewhere, what you, therefore, do is look for a lesser devil, because even in the satanic world, devils have categories.”