Former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman, Dan Ulasi, has acknowledged that President Bola Tinubu is a formidable political strategist who is difficult to defeat, even with calculated efforts by the opposition.
Speaking during an appearance on AIT’s Kakaaki on Thursday, Ulasi urged the PDP to introspect and rebuild ahead of the 2027 elections, stressing that underestimating Tinubu has repeatedly proven costly.
Ulasi recalled that while Tinubu was governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007, he was part of a PDP-led team assembled to neutralize Tinubu’s political grip in the South-West—yet they failed to unseat him.
“The person who is a president of Nigeria is a strategist because in 1998 to 2007 when he was governor of Lagos State, I was part of the factors to stop him in South-West, there was nothing Obasanjo didn’t do. We managed to take some states but we couldn’t do anything in Lagos State and he remained there for seven years,” he said.
Ulasi, who served as Director of Atiku Abubakar’s campaign in the South-East during the 2023 elections, revealed that he had earlier warned the PDP about Tinubu’s tactical brilliance, but his caution was dismissed.
“And in 2023 when we were preparing for this election, I was the Director for Atiku’s campaign in the South-East, we had an emergency meeting and I told them that this guy, people have to sleep with both eyes open that this guy is not somebody you push to the background; they said ah, we would remove him. Look at where he is, President of Nigeria today,” Ulasi stated.
He lamented the PDP’s current decline, blaming the party’s long absence from power and lack of opposition experience for its weakened state.
Ulasi pointed out that the PDP, having emerged as a ruling party in 1999, never properly learned how to operate as an opposition force, which continues to hinder its relevance in Nigeria’s politics as things stand.
