Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has claimed that President Bola Tinubu is 90 years old, saying he is prepared to provide evidence to support the claim in court.
Atiku, who is the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for the 2027 election, made the allegation during an interview with the BBC.
The former vice president said he considers himself physically fit and capable of serving the country.
He questioned why he should not offer himself for public service when, according to his claim, the current president is much older and dealing with health challenges.
Atiku said he possesses documents and other evidence which he believes can establish Tinubu’s actual age. He added that he would present the material before a court if the matter becomes part of a legal proceeding.
He said: “I have a president who is 90 years old now, and who is sick. I am healthy; I am strong. So why would I not make my services available to my fellow countrymen? I have evidence that he is [90], and I will present it in court. I ran for governor four times, because at that position, the people who were in charge of Nigeria’s transition to democracy were military, and I was so anti-military.
“Any time I won, they would disqualify me. The last was when there was even an attempt on my life, and I went into exile. I’ve never found anything easy in my life. There is nothing new there. So, because I’m contesting the presidency two or three times… I mean, that’s not anything unusual in my life, in my political life. I have the experience, I have the competence, I have the patriotism.
“So why would I not make all this available to the service of my country? I remember when we were in office, I told the president that, look, we are over 200 million people and yet we have less than 200,000 policemen. Egypt that has about 80 million had one million policemen on the streets. And therefore, there is peace there. Believe me, within one year, we can control this insurgency and insecurity that is all over the place.”