President Bola Tinubu has rejected allegations that his administration is weakening opposition parties or plotting to impose a one-party system in Nigeria.
Speaking on Wednesday at an interfaith breakfast with senators at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, the president said criticism is an unavoidable part of leadership, noting that he has often been accused of “killing the opposition.”
“Critics will always talk and give you names,” Tinubu said. “When they accused me of killing the opposition, I didn’t have a gun. I could have even issued myself a licence, since I have the authority.”
He said Nigeria’s pressing security challenges — including terrorism and banditry — require national unity rather than political division, urging Nigerians to embrace the democratic ideals of the country’s founding fathers.
“I can’t blame anyone for jumping out of a sinking ship,” the president said.
“What this country has faced in this difficult period — terrorism and banditry — has caused enormous damage. We must pull together and unite as our forefathers envisioned to sustain constitutional democracy. They did not say we should fight.”
Tinubu also defended his administration’s economic reforms, describing them as bold, collective efforts aimed at dismantling entrenched corruption, particularly in the subsidy and foreign-exchange systems.
“I have received a lot of credit for bold reforms, but without your collaboration and support, they would not have been possible. We are reformers together,” he said. “What we stopped was monumental corruption in the subsidy regime. We do not want to be part of corruption or foreign-exchange arbitrage.”
