Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor has returned to public political commentary with a pointed message. He reiterated that what Nigerians are experiencing today is not Bola Tinubu’s creation alone. It is the compounded result of a trajectory he says he warned against over a decade ago, and one that successive administrations failed to correct.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today, the former Christian Association of Nigeria president said he foresaw the country’s current direction as far back as 2014, before the Muhammadu Buhari administration came to power in 2015. He described what followed as a descent from one level of crisis to another, with conditions worsening at each stage rather than stabilising. The hardship Nigerians are enduring today, he argued, did not arrive suddenly. It was built incrementally, through policy failures, missed warnings, and a political culture that consistently chose expediency over accountability.
Oritsejafor said his years of public silence were deliberate. After repeatedly raising concerns that went unheeded by both leaders and the electorate, he said he chose to withdraw rather than continue speaking without result.
“I kept quiet because sometimes when you talk to people, when you try to make them understand that what is happening, and what’s going to happen, is going to be terrible, and you try, and try and then no one seems to be listening, the best thing is to withdraw,” he said.
The frustration behind that decision was evident in how he framed it. A man who warns and is ignored long enough eventually stops warning, not because the danger has passed, but because the audience has stopped listening.
His decision to re-engage, he explained, was driven by the scale of hardship now confronting ordinary Nigerians. The conditions on the ground, in his assessment, had reached a point where continued silence was no longer defensible for someone in his position.
On the present economic situation, his language was unsparing.
“The average Nigerian today has no hope, except if you say you look up to God to give you hope,” he said.
That is a striking statement from a man who spent years as the nation’s most prominent Christian leader.
He stopped short of calling on Tinubu to step aside before his first term ends. But his message about 2027 was direct and unambiguous. The president must decide for himself whether to seek re-election. What he must not do, Oritsejafor said, is present himself to Nigerians for a second term without a demonstrable change in direction from what he described plainly as the current mess. His words confirming that continuation without correction is not a platform anyone should be allowed to run on.
