Tinubu Has No Time for Key Officials — Ex-VP Aide Baba-Ahmed
Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, a former Special Adviser on Political Matters to Vice President Kashim Shettima, has revealed that he left his position because he felt ignored by President Bola Tinubu and unable to make a meaningful impact in the administration.
Speaking on Prime Time, a program on Arise TV on Monday, Baba-Ahmed said he resigned in March because the environment didn’t allow him to contribute effectively — not for lack of ideas, but because the president was not accessible to people like him.
“If it was just about my personal comfort, maybe I would have stayed,” he said. “But I felt I could do much more for the country. I wasn’t brought in to sit idle and watch things go wrong without the chance to help fix them. Unfortunately, there was no access to the president, no real channel for engagement.”
Although he had regular interactions with Vice President Shettima, Baba-Ahmed said that wasn’t enough.
“I met with the vice president almost daily. We talked a lot about the country. But Nigeria needs more than just talk — real decisions happen with the president,” he said. “In all my time there, I only saw President Tinubu three times — in the mosque. We never sat down to talk. Not once.”
He believes President Tinubu either chose to isolate himself or is being kept away from his own team.
“The president is genuinely isolated — either by choice or by forces we don’t understand,” Baba-Ahmed said. “He needs to be accessible to the people he appointed to run the country. Right now, he isn’t. And that’s a problem for Nigeria.”
He warned that without listening to the right voices, Tinubu risks relying on the wrong ones — or none at all.
“The Nigerian president holds enormous power. If he’s not drawing ideas from those he picked to lead, then who is advising him? Either he’s getting the wrong advice, or none at all.”
Baba-Ahmed, who previously served as the spokesperson for the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), expressed concern that many of those close to the president appear out of touch with reality.
“When they talk about Nigeria, it’s like they live in a different world,” he said. “Meanwhile, we go out, we see how people are suffering — poverty, insecurity, hopelessness. People ask, ‘Aren’t you advising the president? Why is nothing changing?’ And it’s frustrating.”
He believes the country would be in a better state if the president welcomed broader input and appointed more competent hands.
“If the president was more open to advice and surrounded himself with people of high quality — and actually listened to them — things could improve significantly,” he said.
In an open letter dated April 23, Baba-Ahmed called on Tinubu to forgo a second-term ambition and pave the way for a new generation of Nigerian leaders. He also recently hinted that the north would soon announce its position on the 2027 presidency.
“Let’s be clear,” he said. “Nobody becomes president in Nigeria without the support of the north.”
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