THE Presidency has insisted that President Bola Tinubu is currently focused on positively impacting the lives of Nigerians and not the next general elections.
Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communications, Sunday Dare who made the clarification in a statement on X on Friday, said the president’s achievement would at the end of his tenure, be how he has been able to bring development to the economy.
Dare’s statement comes amid growing political tension and economic hardship in the country.
Efforts to form a coalition that could challenge Tinubu in 2027 are on top gear, as former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, decamped from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
The statement read “President Tinubu is not worried about the next election. He’s worried about the shared prosperity that he can bring to Nigerians.
“He’s worried about how the reforms he has put in place will yield necessary impact. He is concerned about what happens to the economy of this country eventually. That’s the focus. “We’ve seen our foreign reserves go up. We’ve seen inflation come down. We’ve seen our trade surplus go up.
“We’ve seen exports go up and imports drop.
“We’ve seen the investments that have been attracted -over 50 billion. We are seeing prices dropping.
“We have clear data and you have a President that is clearly in the driver’s seat, and he has stayed the course of the decisions he has taken.
“And I think that the next election is not really in his view right now.
“It’s how to make sure that at the end of his first term, he can sit back and say, look, “I have impacted the lives of Nigerians. I have turned this economy around”.
Amid hardship rocking the country, Tinubu has assured Nigerians of hope, reiterating his commitment to running a government that listens to the needs of Nigerians.
While receiving the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) on Friday, he told the bishops that he made a tough decision upon assuming office in 2023 by removing subsidies on petroleum products.
He stressed the competition among operators in the petroleum sector, the bountiful harvest enjoyed by farmers, and the lower prices of commodities, adding that investments are flowing into the country.
“Yes, removing the fuel subsidy was hard, tough for me, but it’s a hard choice that Nigeria must face. We are not going to bankrupt our country,” the President was quoted in a statement by his spokesman, Bayo Onanuga.