Atiku Abubakar denies plan to step down for any presidential aspirant ahead of 2027

Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has strongly denied a new media report suggesting he intends to abandon his presidential ambition in the 2027 election cycle to support a different aspirant.

The denial comes in response to reports on Thursday, October 2, which claimed Atiku had expressed a willingness to step down for a “younger, vibrant and more acceptable candidate” on the platform of the coalition-backed African Democratic Congress during an interview with the BBC Hausa Service on Wednesday.

In a statement released on Thursday by his Media Adviser, Paul Ibe, the former Vice President dismissed the report as a misrepresentation of the interview. The statement clarified that a thorough review of both the video and the transcript—in both the original Hausa and the English translation—showed that Atiku never “expressly state[d], suggest[ed], or even implie[d] that he intends to step down for anyone.”

According to Ibe, what Atiku Abubakar “clearly and unambiguously said” was that young people and other prospective presidential aspirants are free to enter the contest. He further stated that if a young candidate were to emerge through a competitive primary, he would “readily support such a candidate without any hesitation.”

The statement concluded by cautioning against misinterpretive journalism, stressing that the insinuations attributed to the Waziri Adamawa from his BBC Hausa interview are inaccurate and do not reflect his actual comments.