2027: They Ruined It, Tinubu Is Fixing It – Presidency Tells Why Jonathan Will Be Dumped Again

The Presidency has dismissed moves by opposition figures to draft former President Goodluck Jonathan into the 2027 presidential race, describing such efforts as another ploy to use and abandon him as was the case in 2015.

Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, in a statement on September 29, 2025, said Professor Jerry Gana and other leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were merely seeking to lure Jonathan back into the contest to satisfy their personal, political, ethnic, and religious interests.

He warned that Jonathan risked being dumped again by the same forces if he allowed himself to be persuaded into the race.

Onanuga said while Jonathan had the constitutional right to contest if he wished, his eligibility would ultimately be tested in court given that he had been sworn in twice as president. He stressed that Nigerians would also ask whether the former president had anything new to offer after what he described as six years of poor governance that culminated in the 2015 defeat.

The Presidency recalled that Jonathan inherited $66 billion in 2010, with $46 billion in foreign reserves and $20 billion in the Excess Crude Account, but left office in 2015 with reserves below $30 billion and the Excess Crude Account depleted to $2 billion, despite record oil revenues.

Onanuga accused the Jonathan administration of running the economy aground through frivolous spending, mismanagement of oil earnings, and diversion of security funds.

He contrasted that with President Bola Tinubu’s performance in office, saying the current administration had taken bold steps to stabilise the economy.

According to him, in the past 28 months, Tinubu removed the fuel subsidy, ended multiple exchange rates, restored investor confidence, and boosted GDP growth to 4.23 percent in the second quarter of 2025, surpassing IMF projections. Inflation, he noted, dropped to 20.12 percent in August, the lowest in three years, while foreign reserves stood at $42.03 billion.

Onanuga said road infrastructure projects were being executed across the country, including the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Sokoto-Badagry Highway, alongside efforts to address security concerns.

He maintained that the opposition broke the economy and President Tinubu was fixing it, adding that Nigerians would not allow Jonathan and the PDP to return and ruin the country again.