Chairman of the Senate Services Committee and lawmaker representing Kogi West, Senator Sunday Karimi, has dismissed concerns over the state of Nigeria’s political opposition, saying it is not President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s responsibility to organise or strengthen rival political parties.
Speaking during an interview on ARISE NEWS on Friday, Karimi defended the president’s controversial Democracy Day comment, in which Tinubu said it was a “pleasure to witness the opposition in disarray”. The remark sparked backlash from critics who said it reflected poorly on the president’s commitment to democratic plurality.
Karimi, however, rejected that criticism outright, saying “Politics is a race, and it’s a game for those that are ready for it. It is not the responsibility of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to organise other parties. If other parties are disorganised, so is that his business? No. If they are disorganised, then they are not ready to govern Nigeria.”
The senator argued that a fractured opposition is a reflection of its own internal weaknesses, not an indictment of Tinubu’s leadership. He insisted that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is within its rights to welcome defectors and consolidate political gains, without being accused of undermining democracy.
“Those other parties, they have their right to remain in the party. You know, they are also trying to form coalition against the government of Tinubu so that they can take power from him. So if they are trying to bring themselves together, and others are trying to join APC, what has President Tinubu done wrongly? Nothing. He’s trying to strengthen APC. Trying to strengthen APC doesn’t mean that he’s trying to turn Nigeria to a one-party state,” he said.
Karimi noted that Tinubu’s remarks were being politicised by those unwilling to confront their own party’s failings.
The senator also addressed related concerns raised by opposition figures, particularly Labour Party’s Peter Obi, who criticised the Tinubu administration’s performance on economic and social fronts. Obi had cited statistics pointing to rising poverty, declining per capita income, and increased out-of-school children under Tinubu’s watch.
Karimi challenged the accuracy of those figures and questioned their intent.
“Those figures which you gave from Peter Obi, I doubt those figures.” he said.
He went on to say, “When the president took over, he inherited an economy in a very bad state. Let me remind you, we got to a situation that we were using ways and means, printing Naira to sustain the economy. That was the situation that Nigeria was when President Tinubu took over. We couldn’t provide for ourselves. We couldn’t provide to run our economy. We had to be printing Naira. But when he came to power, it stopped. He took drastic decisions.
“You talk of the first subsidy thing that was removed, talk of the exchange rate that was turned to a singular exchange rate. Those decisions affected our economy. It affected Nigerians. The cost of living increased, and Nigerians are not finding it easy, we acknowledge that. But this same government, they are taking decisions that will turn the economy around. At the end of the day, we are going to benefit from it.”
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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