BCDA leadership crisis: Quit 2027 race now, Atiku tells Tinubu

By Omeiza Ajayi

ABUJA: Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress ADC, Atiku Abubakar, has said the leadership crisis rocking the Border Communities Development Agency BCDA is proof of a government adrift, insisting that President Bola Tinubu should abandon his 2027 re-election ambition and instead focus on correctly steering the ship of state.

In a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu on Thursday, Atiku said the international embarrassment inflicted on Nigeria by the administration’s serial governance blunders has become unbearable, warning that the country is increasingly being portrayed as a state where official pronouncements no longer command official obedience.

Atiku insisted that the time had come for Tinubu to place national interest above personal political ambition.

He said; “Having presided over an administration that has lurched from one avoidable controversy to another, from policy reversals to institutional confusion, from worsening economic hardship to repeated governance failures, President Tinubu should take an honest look at the state of the nation and draw the only honourable conclusion. Rather than diverting public attention to an early re-election campaign, he should devote whatever remains of his tenure to addressing the pressing challenges confronting the nation or, better still, acknowledge that he has fallen short of the expectations of Nigerians and gracefully withdraw from the 2027 presidential contest.

“History remembers leaders not for how desperately they sought to retain power, but for the wisdom they displayed in knowing when they had lost the confidence and goodwill of the people. For the sake of Nigeria’s future, President Tinubu should put the country first, abandon any re-election bid, and allow Nigerians the opportunity to choose a leadership capable of restoring competence, accountability, constitutional fidelity and hope to our beloved nation.”

Atiku specifically queried the contradictions surrounding the BCDA leadership tussle, asking, “How does a President publicly appoint a new head of a federal agency, yet weeks later the person said to have been replaced remains in office, continues to exercise authority, appears on the agency’s official website as its chief executive, and even holds official meetings with ministers? What exactly is the Presidency asking Nigerians and the international community to believe?”

He warned that the confusion was damaging the country’s standing with investors and development partners, noting that “every needless contradiction chips away at our national credibility. Investors are watching. Development partners are watching. The world is watching.”

The former Vice President also pointed to a legal dimension to the crisis, noting that while the Presidency announced both the outgoing and incoming officials as Director-General, the law establishing the agency provides for an Executive Secretary as its chief executive, a designation the agency itself still officially recognises.

Atiku described the BCDA episode as only the latest in a disturbing pattern of institutional disorder under the present administration, recalling the confusion that engulfed the Nigerian Postal Service NIPOST, where conflicting claims over the agency’s leadership left Nigerians uncertain which presidential directive was authentic.

He also cited the controversy surrounding the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council PFIPC, where the Presidency first distanced itself from the body before later directing an investigation, alongside recurring questions over budgetary allocations for projects unrelated to agencies’ statutory mandates and repeated policy reversals.

“When one incident occurs, it may be dismissed as human error. When it happens repeatedly, it becomes evidence of systemic failure. From NIPOST to PFIPC and now BCDA, this administration has demonstrated an alarming inability to coordinate even routine governmental decisions. Governance has been reduced to improvisation, while Nigerians are left to bear the cost of the confusion. These are no longer isolated public relations mishaps; they point to a deeper crisis of coordination, competence and accountability at the highest levels of government,” he said.

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