The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has rejected a recent report by The Economist on President Bola Tinubu’s chances in the 2027 presidential election, with the party’s spokesperson, Bolaji Abdullahi, describing the report as “poor journalism.”
The Economist had reported that Tinubu could remain in office after the 2027 election despite concerns over insecurity and economic hardship in the country.
However, Abdullahi criticised the report during an interview with Trust TV, questioning the basis for treating the publication as an electoral projection.
“I’m embarrassed the way we are elevating a mere story to the level of an electoral projection, and if this were a logic class, then we would be guilty of what is called argumentum ad veracundiam,” he said.
Abdullahi explained that the phrase refers to an appeal to authority. He argued that the reputation of a publication should not automatically make the conclusions in one of its reports credible.
According to him, he personally found the report to be weak journalism despite being published by The Economist.
“I read that story, and I think even as a piece of journalism it’s poor journalism. The fact that it’s published by The Economist does not excuse the fact that it is poor journalism,” Abdullahi said.
The ADC spokesperson also questioned how the report arrived at conclusions about Nigeria as a whole, arguing that the interviews used were too limited to support such a broad assessment.
He said the report relied on conversations with people in Borno and suggested that this was insufficient to represent the views of Nigerians across the country.
“How do I mean? When you sit in one place in Borno, and probably Borno town, just the town, then you spoke to a couple of people and used that to extrapolate for the entire country, that’s not journalism,” he said.
Abdullahi, who previously worked as a newspaper editor, further recalled how he would have handled a similar report during his time at ThisDay newspaper.
“That’s not the way we do this work. And like I said on a different TV platform yesterday, if a reporter brought that to me as an editor, when I was at ThisDay newspaper, I would throw it back at him and say it’s lazy reporting,” he said.
When asked whether his remarks amounted to describing The Economist itself as a lazy platform, Abdullahi clarified that his criticism was directed specifically at the report and not the publication as a whole.
“I’m saying that that story is poor journalism, and it cannot be excused just because it was published by The Economist,” he said.
His comments come as political activities and debates surrounding the 2027 presidential election continue to intensify, with political parties and actors increasingly challenging reports, assessments and projections about the contest.
Source: Trust TV.
