{"id":75502,"date":"2025-09-22T14:54:01","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T14:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=75502"},"modified":"2025-09-22T14:54:01","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T14:54:01","slug":"presidency-denies-el-rufais-life-president-claim-against-tinubu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/09\/22\/presidency-denies-el-rufais-life-president-claim-against-tinubu\/","title":{"rendered":"Presidency Denies El-Rufai\u2019s \u2018Life President\u2019 Claim Against Tinubu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Sarah Sam Adda<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Presidency has dismissed allegations by former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is plotting to make himself a \u201clife president,\u201d insisting the President has no intention of remaining in office beyond 2031 if re-elected in 2027.<\/p>\n<p>Presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga, in a statement on Sunday, described El-Rufai\u2019s comments as \u201cbaseless, unfounded and absurd,\u201d stressing that Tinubu remains committed to democracy and would vacate office on May 28, 2031, should he secure a second term.<\/p>\n<p>El-Rufai, speaking over the weekend, had urged former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to mobilise Nigerians against Tinubu in 2027, accusing the administration of centralising power and warning that the President was on track to emulate Cameroon\u2019s long-serving leader, Paul Biya.<\/p>\n<p>In response, Onanuga said the former governor\u2019s remarks reflected frustration over Tinubu\u2019s growing popularity, particularly in the North, citing the rousing welcome the President received during his recent visit to Kaduna.<\/p>\n<p>He added that El-Rufai\u2019s outburst was evidence that attempts by political rivals to block Tinubu\u2019s re-election were already faltering.<\/p>\n<p>Onanuga further advised Kaduna Governor Uba Sani to engage with his predecessor, suggesting that El-Rufai \u201cmight benefit from professional counselling\u201d to steer him away from what he called \u201challucinations and political fabrications.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Sarah Sam Adda &nbsp; The Presidency has dismissed allegations by former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is plotting to make himself a \u201clife president,\u201d insisting the President has no intention of remaining in office beyond 2031 if re-elected in 2027. Presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga, in a statement on Sunday, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":75503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75504,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75502\/revisions\/75504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}