ADC chieftain says he received phone call from Buhari’s grave, urges Nigerians to vote Atiku

Dalung described Aisha Buhari’s visit to Atiku’s Abuja residence as a message that the late president’s supporters should back the former vice president.

The ADC chieftain also predicted that President Bola Tinubu would lose to Atiku, even if the ruling party disrupted the ADC’s campaign.

Former Minister of Youth and Sports and African Democratic Congress (ADC) chieftain Solomon Dalung has said President Bola Tinubu cannot defeat former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in the 2027 presidential election. He claimed that the 12 million votes associated with the late President Muhammadu Buhari have been transferred to Atiku.

Dalung, who is also Director of the Mandate Protection Directorate of the ADC Presidential Campaign, spoke on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, November 12, 2026. He served as minister under Buhari from November 2015 to May 2019.

He said Tinubu would still lose even if he took over the ADC secretariat and stopped the party from campaigning. “Atiku Abubakar is the only politician in Nigeria who has a national structure,” he said, adding that Atiku inherited the structure of the late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, who was his political mentor.

Dalung cited a visit by Buhari’s widow, Aisha, to Atiku’s Abuja residence as evidence that Buhari’s support base had moved. He said the message she took was that the 12 million votes had been successfully transferred. It is reported that he described the message as so clear that it was like "a phone call from the grave" of Buhari urging Nigerians to vote for Atiku.

Atiku publicly disclosed in September that he had hosted Aisha Buhari at his residence. Neither she nor the Buhari family had publicly commented on Dalung’s claim at the time of filing. 

Buhari polled about 12.2 million votes in the 2011 election, which he contested under the Congress for Progressive Change. He polled about 15.4 million in 2015 and 15.2 million in 2019, when he was the APC candidate.

Atiku Abubakar leads the ADC to the ballot. Dalung’s remarks came a week after the Federal High Court in Abuja, in a judgment by Justice Peter Lifu on November 5, nullified the David Mark-led ADC leadership and the decisions it took, including the primary that produced Atiku as the party’s presidential candidate. The judgment came in a suit filed by Nafiu Bala Gombe.

The ADC rejected the judgment, appealed it and notified the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The party accused the APC of interference, which the APC denied, describing the crisis as an internal ADC dispute. Atiku called the ruling an attempt to weaken the opposition and frustrate his ambition.

The APC had not responded to Dalung’s remarks at the time of filing.

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