Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development Festus Keyamo has accused opposition groups of staging incidents involving President Bola Tinubu’s campaign posters as part of a propaganda campaign ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Keyamo made the claim on X in response to a video shared by another account showing a man tearing down the President’s re-election posters, with a message reading “Tinubu must go” appearing in the footage.
The account that shared the video alleged that Tinubu should not attempt to rig the election in the North, claiming that the President was unpopular in the region.
Reacting to the post, Keyamo described the man in the video as an alleged “sponsored thug of the opposition,” claiming that the destruction of the posters was deliberately recorded and circulated as part of a propaganda strategy.
He argued that such incidents could be presented online as evidence that Tinubu had been rejected by angry Nigerians, even though the individual involved represented only one person among Nigeria’s 93,469,008 registered voters.
Keyamo also accused some media outlets and bloggers of giving prominence to such incidents while portraying similar acts involving opposition posters differently.
He referenced an incident in Lagos the previous week in which two or three people were reportedly seen using Tinubu’s posters to cover posters belonging to an opposition party.
The minister acknowledged that the Lagos incident was also unacceptable but claimed that some television programmes and blogs amplified the footage and described those involved as “thugs of the ruling party.”
Keyamo said the contrasting treatment showed what he described as a deliberate opposition strategy to portray the ruling All Progressives Congress and the Tinubu administration negatively ahead of the 2027 election.
He alleged that the objective was to create the impression that the President was unpopular and use that narrative to challenge the election outcome if the opposition lost.
“The script and propaganda tactics of the opposition is clear,” Keyamo wrote.
He also alleged that opposition parties were already preparing the ground to reject what he described as their “apparent defeat” in the January 16, 2027 election.
Despite his accusations, Keyamo urged APC supporters not to retaliate against those involved in removing or defacing campaign posters.
“This is not a call on the teeming APC supporters to retaliate in any form,” he said, while calling on Nigerians to reflect on what he described as double standards in the treatment of political incidents.
Keyamo further claimed that opposition parties had recently suffered defeats in bye-elections across five regions of the country and predicted a similar outcome in the 2027 presidential election.
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