Presidential candidate of the Democratic Leadership Alliance (DLA), Moses Adebisi, has declared that he will defeat President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 election and become Nigeria’s youngest elected president.

Adebisi made the declaration on Thursday during an interview on Arise TV, where he explained his decision to join the presidential race and outlined his party’s strategy for the election.

The DLA was registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in February 2026 after emerging from a process involving 171 political associations.

According to Adebisi, the party deliberately maintained a low profile while building its political structures, describing the strategy as a “submarine approach”.

“They never saw us coming. Nobody saw us coming at all, but we came anyway,” he said.

Adebisi said the party would rely on grassroots mobilisation and an “underdog approach” to challenge Nigeria’s established political parties in 2027.

Explaining his decision to return to Nigeria from the United States and enter politics, he said he realised he could not contribute effectively to solving the country’s problems from abroad.

He also highlighted his previous community-based initiatives, including empowerment programmes for low-income market women and digital literacy projects for secondary school students.

Adebisi said his organisation had provided computers and volunteers to communities across parts of the South-West, North-Central and the Federal Capital Territory to help students prepare for computer-based examinations.

He said his interest in political leadership also led him to study China’s economic transformation following the 1978 reforms, as well as aspects of the American liberty agenda.

“I travelled to China to go and study the Chinese economic reformation, 1978. I was in Beijing. I was in Shanghai to ensure that I have the entire manifesto that has brought China out of our peasantry to becoming the second superpower today economically,” he said.

Adebisi described himself as the right candidate to lead Nigeria and expressed confidence that he would defeat Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election.

“The Democratic Leadership Alliance that you see today is the only political party that was registered directly between 2022 down to 2026,” he said.

“That is why I’m here, that I’m the right man for the job. And I’m the one that will defeat Tinubu this 2027.”