“It’s Not About What We Want to Eat”: Yinka Quadri Opens Up on Supporting Tinubu

Veteran actor Yinka Quadri explains why he’s backing Tinubu for 2027, from a $25,000 gesture for Moji Olaiya to help for Baba Suwe. Here’s his full story.

When a veteran actor publicly backs a president, people always ask why. Yinka Quadri has an answer, and it’s a very personal one.

He’s supporting President Bola Tinubu’s re-election in 2027. His biggest reason is a story from 2017. Quadri claims Tinubu paid $25,000 to bring actress Moji Olaiya’s body home from Canada.

He shared all this on the African A-List programme, in an interview posted over the weekend.

“It’s not about what we want to eat”

Quadri says people misread why actors back politicians. They assume it’s about money. He says it isn’t. “It is not about what we want to eat,” he said.

When Moji Olaiya died in Canada, her colleagues wanted her back home. Quadri says he, Fathia Balogun, Yomi Fabiyi and others were trying to raise the money themselves. Then they went to Tinubu’s house in Bourdillon, Lagos.

According to him, Tinubu asked what it would cost and paid the whole amount. Quadri puts it at $25,000.

He also remembered the late comic actor Baba Suwe, popularly known as Baba Suwe. Quadri says Tinubu covered his hospital bills when he was sick. And he says the help hasn’t stopped. When practitioners approach him, Tinubu still gives.

Quadri didn’t stop at celebrity stories. He listed the Papalanto-Sagamu road, the Sagamu-Ijebu Ode route, pension payments to retirees and the Nigerian Education Loan Fund as reasons too.

He isn’t claiming it’s perfect. “I know it is not enough, but I praise him,” he said.

Tinubu is the APC’s presidential candidate. He won the party’s primary in May, and INEC has fixed the election for January 16, 2027. The party’s campaign council head says the campaign opens in Kaduna on October 24.

This isn’t Quadri’s first public show of support. In June 2022, he appeared in a video with Jide Kosoko, Fausat Balogun, Taiwo Hassan and Femi Adebayo, all backing Tinubu’s ambition. Even then, he said he wasn’t doing it because he’d been paid.

Keep in mind that these are Quadri’s own claims. Whether you agree with his choice or not, he clearly wants people to know his support comes from what he says he saw up close, not from what he stands to gain.