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Nigeria’s political landscape is heading into a turbulent phase as the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) has accused President Bola Tinubu of steering the country toward a one-party state, warning that such “democratic suffocation” threatens the nation’s stability ahead of the 2027 general election.
The alarm was raised in Abuja by elder statesman and NNPP chieftain, Alhaji Buba Galadima, during an interaction with senior editors of the Daily Sun.
He argued that the resurgence of insecurity and the shrinking political space suggest that democracy is “drifting into dangerous territory.”
Galadima accused the President of working to weaken opposition parties to consolidate power for the All Progressives Congress (APC).
He insisted that the move would collapse under its own weight.
“Those in power want to dominate the field and emerge unopposed, but Nigeria has never been a place where the people surrender their will quietly,” he said.
“Any attempt to impose a sole political structure will eventually backfire.”
Moreover, the NNPP stalwart dismissed the belief that mass defections of governors into one political fold guarantee electoral success.
According to him, the country’s leadership crisis runs deeper than party membership, pointing instead to the “absence of a national plan that guides development.”
He also took aim at Tinubu’s recent call to judges to preserve the integrity of the judiciary.
Galadima questioned the sincerity of such admonitions, describing them as “hollow statements” that fail to match the realities Nigerians see in the courts.
“Who exactly is buying justice if not the actors within the system?” he queried. “Leaders must be honest with themselves before preaching morality.”
Galadima further argued that the political culture that emerged after 2003, shaped significantly by Atiku Abubakar and now Tinubu, has “polluted the nation’s democratic values.”
Hence, he believes Nigeria cannot make progress under a climate he describes as “institutionally compromised and directionless.”
In his critique of the National Assembly, the NNPP figure accused lawmakers of abandoning their constitutional duty by rubber-stamping every executive request.
He lamented that the legislature now grants retrospective approvals on borrowing, thereby eroding public trust.
“There is danger ahead, and it is visible,” he warned.
“The media must not look away. At this pace, Nigeria is being pushed into a one-party arrangement, and freedom depends on resisting it.”
Galadima also questioned why the President, already declared the winner of the 2023 election, appears desperate to pull every state governor into the APC.
He suggested that the pattern raises doubts about the commitment of the current administration to conduct credible elections in 2027.
However, he maintained that the polls would eventually hold, stressing that democracy cannot survive without dissenting voices.
“Once alternatives disappear, dictatorship becomes inevitable,” he noted.
Turning to infrastructure priorities, he criticised the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, arguing that the funds would have achieved a broader national impact if invested in a 5,000-kilometre rail network.
Furthermore, Galadima expressed frustration that Nigerians “can no longer speak through their representatives” because, in his view, most lawmakers have “sold out and surrendered the people’s mandate.”
He added that although he has spent years issuing warnings about the direction of the country, those cautions have repeatedly been ignored, a trend he believes is pushing Nigeria toward a political reckoning.
Galadima’s comments signal a brewing ideological battle as 2027 approaches, setting the stage for what may become one of the most defining electoral contests in Nigeria’s recent history.