Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga has cautioned Nigerians to remember former President Goodluck Jonathan’s record in office amid calls for him to contest the 2027 presidential election.

The warning comes after former Minister of Information Prof. Jerry Gana suggested that Jonathan could run under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and even defeat President Tinubu. Onanuga described Gana’s claims as “absurd” and urged caution, noting that some PDP figures are using Jonathan’s potential candidacy to further their personal, political, and ethnic interests.

While acknowledging Jonathan’s constitutional right to contest, Onanuga said Nigerians will judge whether the former president has anything new to offer after his six-year tenure, which ended in 2015 amid economic challenges.

Onanuga recalled that Jonathan inherited $66 billion in foreign reserves and the Excess Crude Account in 2010, but by 2015, reserves had fallen below $30 billion, and the Excess Crude Account was nearly depleted despite record oil revenues. He added that under Jonathan’s administration, key economic indicators declined, salary arrears mounted across 28 states, and security funds were reportedly mismanaged.

In contrast, Onanuga highlighted the achievements of the Tinubu administration, noting bold economic reforms, removal of the fuel subsidy, stabilization of the Naira, reduced inflation, a GDP growth of 4.23% in Q2 2025, and foreign reserves of $42 billion. Infrastructure projects such as the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and the Sokoto-Badagry Highway were cited as evidence of progress.

“President Jonathan and others are welcome to the 2027 race,” Onanuga said. “They broke the economy before, but millions of Nigerians who remember the recent past will not allow them to return to run it down again.”

Mr Onanuga reiterated that President Tinubu would welcome any candidate to the race but emphasised that the electorate would ultimately decide who has the vision and capability to lead Nigeria forward.

Read full statement below

STATEHOUSE PRESS RELEASE

FORMER PRESIDENT JONATHAN IS WELCOME TO THE RACE. NIGERIANS WILL REMEMBER HIS DISMAL RECORD IN OFFICE

As we begin the march towards the 2027 elections prematurely foisted on the nation by the desperation of the opposition ganging up against President Bola Tinubu despite his glaring giant economic strides, we are once again regaled with a cacophony of voices, most of them full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, to paraphrase inimitable Williams Shakespeare in one of his classic works, Macbeth.

One recent statement that stands out in its absurdity is Professor Jerry Gana’s. The former Minister of Information and National Orientation, moving to draft former President Goodluck Jonathan into the 2007 presidential race, affirmed that the former president would contest the coming election on the platform of the discredited People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which bequeathed a legacy of economic ruins, after 16 years of bad governance.

Gana even deluded himself, asserting that the former President would defeat President Tinubu to reclaim power after 12 years.

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Prof. Gana of the defunct MAMSER fame is free to delude himself and engage in his usual comedy; after all, Jonathan’s entering the race would provide another job for the Niger State-born former university don.

However, we should caution former President Jonathan to be wary of the PDP sugar-coated cheerleaders. Politicians of Jerry Gana’s ilk merely want to lure him into the race to satisfy their personal, political, religious, and ethnic interests. They will abandon him midstream, as they did in 2015, and leave Gentleman Jonathan in the lurch.

Don’t get us wrong: President Jonathan reserves the right to run if he wishes. It is his inalienable right to contest the presidency again. President Tinubu will wholeheartedly welcome him if he decides to enter the race. But Jonathan will have his date in the court of the land. Indeed, the jury will determine whether Jonathan, who was sworn in twice as president, satisfies the constitutional requirements and is eligible to contest the presidency and be sworn in, if successful, for a third term in office.

Shorn of all those selfish considerations for which some PDP big guns find his candidacy appealing, President Jonathan will also have his encounter with the people as to whether he has anything new to offer after his disastrous six years, for which they voted him out in 2015.

Let us remind ourselves about Jonathan’s record. We cannot forget in a hurry how his regime, devoid of any clear economic agenda, engaged in frivolous spending, ran the economy aground and put the country in dire straits. The nation’s economic downturn, which President Tinubu is working very hard to overcome, actually began under President Jonathan. The Jonathan administration severely damaged the economy, and all key indicators declined under his watch. Under him, the so-called business moguls allocated foreign exchange to import fuel, simply pocketing the dollars without importing anything. Some of those big men still have court cases on the issue today.

Jonathan and his National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), freely distributed security funds to friends and cronies.

In 2010, President Jonathan inherited a total of $66 billion, of which $46 billion was in foreign reserves and $20 billion in the noble-but-abused Excess Crude Account. By 2015, when the people democratically removed him from office, the foreign reserves had fallen below $30 billion, and the Excess Crude Account had been depleted to $2 billion, despite generating record revenue from crude oil sales that the country had never achieved in more than 25 years combined.

It is on record that between 2010 and 2013, crude oil sold for an average of $100 per barrel. By December 2014, however, the Jonathan-led Federal Government could no longer pay salaries to Federal Civil Servants. At least 28 states across the country owed workers huge salary arrears.

In contrast, President Tinubu has taken bold decisions over the last 28 months to reset the economy, removing the ruinous fuel subsidy and abolishing multiple exchange rates, which paved the way for arbitrage to flourish. The President has stabilised the economy in slightly over two years in office. In 2025 Q2, the Gross Domestic Product grew by 4.23%, the highest in four years, outpacing the 3.4% projected by the International Monetary Fund. Inflation decreased to 20.12% in August 2025, the lowest level in three years. The foreign reserves stand presently at $42. 03 billion. The Naira has virtually stabilised. Investor confidence in our economy has been restored, and investors are betting on Nigeria.

In plain language, the nation has turned the corner. And our people have started reaping the gains of the bold reforms instituted by the Tinubu administration. Road infrastructure is being boosted. Old roads are being reconstructed while new ones, like the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and the Sokoto-Badagry Highway, among others, are springing up. The government is addressing security issues in some parts of the country.

We can go on and on, reeling out the many macroeconomic gains of the Tinubu administration. However, the point is that the PDP and Jerry Gana’s co-travellers broke the economy; President Tinubu is fixing it.

President Jonathan and others are welcome to the 2027 race. They broke the economy before, but millions of Nigerians who will not easily forget the recent past will not allow them to return to run it down again.

Bayo Onanuga,
Special Adviser to the President
(Information & Strategy)
September 29, 2025