Things are bad, Tinubu is being misled, Adamu Garba warns APC leadership

A prominent chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former presidential aspirant, Adamu Garba, has sounded a warning over what he described as a dangerous disconnect between the realities on the ground and the information being relayed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu by those within his inner circle.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday, Garba accused political sycophants of deliberately shielding the president from the true state of the nation, particularly the mounting economic hardship, insecurity, and discontent within the ruling party.

“There is a lot of sycophancy around the president,” Garba said. “People are telling him that things are okay—things are not okay. The people are suffering, and the APC is at risk of losing its relevance if we continue to pretend otherwise.”

Garba’s remarks came in the wake of the resignation of former APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, whose exit, he said, has deepened internal divisions within the ruling party.

According to him, Ganduje’s departure is a symptom of a wider leadership crisis that, if left unchecked, could embolden opposition forces and weaken the party’s hold ahead of the 2027 general elections.

“The party is bleeding internally. What happened with Ganduje should be a wake-up call to the president and the leadership of the APC,” Garba noted.

The former presidential aspirant expressed concern over the emergence of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) coalition, which brings together several opposition leaders, including those who contested the 2023 elections.

He likened the coalition to “vultures circling, waiting to feed on the weakness of the APC,” warning that the ruling party risks losing power if it fails to address internal grievances and reconnect with its grassroots support base.

“They [ADC coalition] are hoping for our failure. We need to wake up, accept criticism, and rebuild our strength. Leadership must listen to the truth, not flattery,” he said.

Garba also highlighted the challenges facing the APC in the north following the exit of former President Muhammadu Buhari from power in 2023 and his death in July 2025.

Buhari, he said, was the party’s strongest political asset, having consistently delivered millions of bloc votes from the north. However, he lamented that the APC’s performance had already waned during the last general elections.

“Buhari was the backbone of the APC in the north. His 12 million guaranteed votes were a defining factor for our victories,” Garba recalled. “But in 2023, we managed only 5.5 million votes in the north. Without Buhari, we must re-engineer our strategies if we want to remain relevant by 2027.”

Garba urged Tinubu to step out of his comfort zone and engage directly with party stakeholders, civil society, and ordinary Nigerians rather than relying on filtered information from political aides and loyalists.

“The president must lead with empathy and clarity. Nigerians need to feel the presence of a leader who listens. The APC must also undergo internal reform to regain the trust of its supporters, especially now that opposition forces are uniting,” he stated.

He warned that unless the APC embraces genuine reform and responds to growing public dissatisfaction, the party may face the same fate that befell the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2015.