By Omeiza Ajayi
ABUJA — A retired Army general, Major General Abdulmalik Jibrin, has described failure to re-elect President Bola Tinubu in 2027 as a “colossal mistake,” urging Nigerians to support the President for another term.
Jibrin, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Renewed Hope Project 2027, spoke in Abuja during a One-Million-Student Solidarity Walk organised in support of Tinubu.
The rally, organised by Renewed Hope Project 2027 in conjunction with the “Tinubu Again” movement, started from Unity Fountain and ended at Eagle Square, where thousands of students and youth supporters gathered.
“It shall be a colossal mistake by Nigerians if we don’t give President Bola Ahmed Tinubu another opportunity to govern this country for the next four years,” Jibrin said.
He argued that continuity was necessary to sustain what he described as gains from the administration’s ongoing reforms.
The Secretary of the Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prisons Services Board, CDFIPB, also urged supporters and civic groups to intensify grassroots mobilisation ahead of the 2027 election.
Jibrin said the Tinubu administration had demonstrated what he described as a strong commitment to student welfare and access to education.
He said funding for tertiary institutions had helped them expand, establish new faculties and strengthen technical education and skills training.
“Our institutions have been stabilised by providing adequate funding to ensure that they expand, create new faculties, and focus on technical education and skills training. This is designed to make our graduates ready not only for government employment, but to become employers of labour themselves,” he said.
On the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND, Jibrin said the student-loan scheme was helping students whose families could not afford tertiary education.
“You will agree with me when you look at the streets, you see a lot of children who are supposed to be in schools, but they have dropped out, and the reason is that their parents cannot afford it,” he said.
He added that NELFUND provided interest-free loans to eligible students to cover tuition and living expenses.
National Patron of the group, Alhaji Ahmed Mahmoud Mubi, said the organisation had increased its target for votes for Tinubu to 12 million, citing what he described as growing interest among young Nigerians.
Mubi said the group had earlier registered 1.8 million students on its platform, against an initial target of 4.8 million.
Also speaking, Managing Director of NELFUND, Dr Akintunde Sawyerr, urged students to support Tinubu’s re-election bid, asking them to consider the benefits of the student-loan scheme and other federal education interventions when making their political choices.
Sawyerr disclosed that as of September 2026, NELFUND had processed about 1.66 million student-loan applications and disbursed N355.87 billion since opening its application portal in May 2024.
He said more than N192.89 billion of the funds had been paid as institutional fees to 319 tertiary institutions, while N162.98 billion had been disbursed directly to students as upkeep allowances.
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