An erstwhile National Vice Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Salihu Lukman, has alleged that the APC and the duo of former President Muhammadu Buhari and incumbent President Bola Tinubu ruined the the country.

Lukman, who said this in a statement on Saturday in Abuja, also stressed that 2027 presents a golden opportunity to replace them.

The former APC stalwart noted that it would not be enough to merely replace the APC, adding that Nigerians have to work hard to entrench a system whereby the new political party that would produce the next leaders, has the power to put elected officials in check.

He lamented that the current crop of leading opposition politicians are working at cross-purposes as they are each focused on their presidential ambitions, rather than subsuming their narrow interests under the broader national interest of rescuing the nation from the vice-grip of current political hawks.

According to him, unknown to key political opposition leaders, the strength or confidence of President Tinubu is derived from their inability to open themselves and honestly commence negotiations to build a united front ahead of 2027.

He said key opposition political leaders like Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Mr Peter Obi and Sen. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso have paid their dues and are still actively nursing ambitions to become President, even though they were Presidential candidates in the 2023 election.

Lukman said while the opposition leaders all agree that the performance of President Tinubu in the last year since his assumption of office has been disastrous, unfortunately, their agreement falls short of making them accept to work together towards building a common platform, capable of mobilizing and uniting Nigerians towards defeating President Tinubu and APC in 2027.

He said it is quite worrisome that notwithstanding the dangers before the nation, key opposition leaders believe in a business-as-usual approach to politics whereby the most important thing in politics is the management of their ambitions to become President.

Lukman said; “At this point, it is important to appeal to our key opposition leaders to wake up and try to be compassionate and appreciate the gravity of the dire situation facing citizens.

“The big question is whether, on account of personal ambitions, we want to continue to mismanage our reality and sacrifice every opportunity, which ideally a democratic system offers.

“The opportunity that the democratic system offers is that any government, which fails its citizens should be voted out. No doubt, by any standard, both President Tinubu and APC have failed Nigerians. It is quite disheartening that a party, which came with all the promises of changing Nigeria for the better has ended up ruining the country.

“From the economy to problems of insecurity and corruption, which were the three cardinal challenges APC and former President Muhammadu Buhari promised to tackle in 2015, what we had in 2015 is a child’s play today.

“The hard truth is that both former President Buhari and President Tinubu have turned out to be self-centred and unable to produce the needed leadership to pull the country out of its current challenges.

“Certainly, all of us who were actively in support of these leaders never imagined that they would be such colossal failures.”