April 20, (THEWILL) – The 2027 General Election is roughly two years away, but it is currently the talk of the town, struggling for headlines with immediate issues of insecurity and senseless killings in some communities in the country, especially in Benue, Borno and Plateau States.
THEWILL investigations show that while former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, former Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State and the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general election, Peter Obi, are capitalising on the economic downturn in the country to drive the coalition talks ahead of the 2027 general election, the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, is battling within to hold together the legacy political parties that gave birth to it.
Moreover, the coalition talks leaders are facing a stumbling block in their attempts to forge alliances across major opposition political parties because of the ongoing crisis in virtually all of them.
The PDP and LP are currently re-adjusting to the internal crisis generated by the fight over the position of National Secretary and National Working Committee leadership, following separate Supreme Court rulings that restated the supremacy of political parties over the management of their affairs.
For the APC, the perceived lopsided federal appointments has polarised the party into Action Congress of Nigeria faction loyal to President Bola Tinubu and the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, loyal to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari.
“When you have a situation where people cannot eat well, the number of out of school children is increasing rapidly and poverty has increased, leaders have to talk among themselves about how to salvage the situation.” Tanko Yinusa, Coordinator of the Obidient Movement and presidential spokesperson for the Labour Party in the 2023 general poll told THEWILL on Friday.
Interestingly, the International Monetary Fund, IMF on Friday made some critical observations about the country’s economic and social challenges that gave some bite to the views of the opposition.
In its 2025 Article IV Consultation report based on meetings held by its representative with government officials, heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies, the Fund praised the Nigerian Government for embarking on reforms that have positioned the country to withstand external economic shocks, but raised an alarm over increasing poverty in the country.
The Fund’s team led by its Nigerian official, Axel Shimmelpfening, lamented that praise- worthy as measures like the “discontinuation of central bank financing for fiscal deficits, the elimination of expensive fuel subsidies and enhancements in the operation of the foreign exchange market were,” poverty is yet to abate among the generality of Nigerians.
The “gains have yet to benefit all Nigerians, as poverty and food insecurity remain high,” Shimmelpfening said while emphasising the need to “ensure that savings from the removal of fuel subsidies are fully integrated into the national budget and used to protect vital, growth-stimulating investments and to expand the delivery of cash transfers, especially under the World Bank-supported programme targeting those suffering from food insecurity.”
Prevailing harsh economic and social conditions in the country, due to government policies, are at the background of the impending political coalition ahead of 2027, Yinubu maintains.
“How do we salvage the situation is a question that leaders of political parties are coming together to ask now so that they can provide the answers,” he said. But he is quick to add that this quest is being done on an individual basis and not as political parties. “As far as I know, the major political parties, without exception, are in crisis.”
Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar’s Media Adviser, Paul Ibe, is confident that the emergent coalition ahead of 2027 polls is so huge and formidable that Nigerians would marvel at its public presentation, which is soon.
“The coalition is a Nigerian project, not an Atiku, Obi or el-rufai project. These leaders are just the guiding light of the project to achieve the objective. Nigerians in their numbers who are everyday finding it unacceptable what they are faced with; the government is not working for them. The coalition therefore presents Nigerians with a vehicle.”
However, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, and a leader of the major opposition PDP, said the talks of coalition or opposition on an individual or party basis for the purpose of challenging President Tinubu’s re-election, is dead on arrival.
At a media parley on Friday, he said for the President to have triumphed over the pre-election antics of his own party and won the 2023 election shows that he was destined to win and would win again in 2027. The PDP, Wike noted, lacks the structure to win just as he kicked against any zoning of the presidential ticket to the North.
“I have said it in 2023 and I’m saying it again that until 2031, when the position should go to the North, there is nothing anybody will say to me now. It’s not anti-party, it’s harmonious living together, you can’t tell me that it’s your own prerogative to be producing president; let’s all live,” he said.
Former Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State said the coalition will go up in smoke very soon because the governors of the PDP are not with Atiku, as they are fighting for their own political survival.
At the weekend, he said that, “If anybody is fighting issues with his party, he can resolve that with his party. The (PDP) governors’ actions and statement in Ibadan is to tell Atiku that we are not with you, we are going nowhere, we have our own identity.
“So, that coalition is just in the imagination of people trying to bring it to fruition. So, let me say to you, it’s a waste of time.”
UNCERTAINTIES IN THE PARTIES AS OBSTACLES
An insider with deep knowledge of the inner workings of the main opposition PDP confided in THEWILL that while leaders in their personal capacities are discussing coalition ahead of the 2027 polls, the major political parties themselves are in varying degrees of crisis that creates an uncertainty in the air and threatens the polity.
“Nobody knows where the road is leading and will end in the entire polity. My fear is that we do not all end up in strife. Take the governing APC. It is the government that gives a face to the governing party. Otherwise, how come the legacy parties that merged to form it are still waxing stronger?
He alluded to the leadership crisis in two of the major legacy parties within APC, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, of the President and the ex-President Muhammadu Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, which have in turn monopolised governmental appointments.
“They are fighting. A day after former Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura of Nasarawa and his former Katsina counterpart, Aminu Masari and 21 leaders of the CPC recently signed a statement on its behalf supporting President Tinubu’s re-election, another leader of the CPC and former Attorney- General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, blasted them, arguing that they lacked the right to speak for the CPC membership, as he himself was currently consulting about his political future.
The PDP faction that joined the APC, like former Senate President Bukola Saraki, former Sokoto Governor and now Senator, Aminu Tambuwal, have since retraced their steps to the PDP. Former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Ameachi is not a committed APC man. New entrants into APC like Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Minister of Works, Dave Umahi and to an extent, Wike, are the ones making waves in APC. In my party PDP, some leaders are one leg in the party, another in the APC or in the brewing coalition. These are the shifting alliances that creates uncertainty in the polity and until they are settled, we cannot define the political firmament yet ahead of 2027.”
DIFFERENT VOICES WITHIN
Disagreements over what to do in the prevailing circumstance and how is still going on. In the PDP, for instance, while Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State who recently oversaw the successful conduct of the South-West zonal elective congress of the party and hosted PDP Governors Forum in Ibadan, where the party overruled any interest in coalition talks, fixed its national convention for August 29, said it is timely to start the discussion of 2027 politics now, his counterpart in Akwa Ibom State, Eno Umo, has voted to support Tinubu for a second term.
Makinde said that now is the time to start preparation for the 2027 general election in the country.
In the newsletter made available to this newspaper at the weekend, Governor Makinde, among other things, said, “Yes, it is still two years before the next presidential election, but now is the best time to begin to prepare for the journey ahead. The last two years have been difficult for Nigerians as a whole.
According to him, decisions have been made – some ill-timed, others ill-conceived and “they have inadvertently brought us to where we are today as a nation. It is time to reset.”
He urged those he referred to as forward-thinking Nigerians to begin to seek out the best alternative, one that will restore peoples collective trust in democracy and once again place our nation on the path to prosperity.
“Nigerians have tested the APC experiment. After 10 years, it is clear which political party has the temperament to foster economic growth and development. Nigerians must now decide whether the so-called ‘corruption’ that was said to be killing Nigeria under the PDP has truly died or whether it has instead been fertilised and reborn, “ he said, adding, “If there has ever been a time in our nation’s history when it is critical to take an interest in our political future, it is now. It is time for a shift.”
Makinde’s stand confirms this newspaper’s findings that he is eyeing the presidential candidacy of his party alongside his Bauchi counterpart, Mohammed. “That is part of the game, either of them is eyeing the presidency. What we are yet to know is whether either of them will aspire for the Presidential or Vice Presidential ticket,“ a party source confided in THEWILL.
Governor Umo at the weekend expressed a different view. Disclosing that people have been calling him to explain his recent statement that he would support Tinubu’s second term bid, he said, “Me, I do not know how to speak from two sides of the mouth. In the night, they go there (presidential villa) and tell Baba, “we will support you,” in the afternoon, they do another thing.”
Open signs of a major crack in the CPC, came up last when ex-AGF, Malami rebuked former Nasarawa governor, Al-Makuri and his Katsina counterpart, Masari, for speaking on behalf of the party that it would support Tinubu’s second term bid. He said he would further explain his pro-Tinubu stand in the future.
Who is speaking for the CPC in the 2027 general election? he asked. “Is it the likes of Senator Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, Adamu Adamu, Masari and Faruku Adamu Aliu, who, a few months ago, had been throwing Buhari under the bus in a desperate attempt to gain relevance that should decide for the bloc?” Ex-President Buhari, who has restated his loyalty to the APC again and again, however, has refused to hold any member of CPC back on matters of their political future. This public disagreement within the CPC, which the party has been papering over for the past weeks, has sent the governing party in a frenzy culminating in the sudden visit to ex-President Buhari last week by the APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje and his NCW team, shortly after a visit to the ex-President by opposition politicians led by Atiku Abubakar, el-Rufai and Senator Tambuwal.
Ganduje used the occasion of the visit to dismiss the perceived threat of the opposition leaders. He said that “history is about to repeat itself, because the opposition leaders are strange bedfellows whose joint venture will not work.”
“Well, it’s a game, but we will not reveal our own intrigues and game plan. But I can tell you we are equal to the task,” he added. Malami, like many other CPC leaders from the North see the region’s growing disaffection with the Bola Tinubu Administration as a golden opportunity to realise their ambition for governor and other elective positions.
BANDWAGON EFFECT COMING
Ibe and Yinusa are nevertheless optimistic that the ongoing coalition talks would materialise and reshape the political landscape ahead of 2027, anyhow.
“The structure is in place. There will be alignment and realignment and when the train gets off, those still undecided now will be forced to jump on the wagon.” Ibe said. “The coalition presents Nigerians with a vehicle and when I speak about Nigerians, it is not limited to Atiku Abubakar, Nasir el-Rufai and Peter Obi and others involved in the coalition talks. These leaders are just the face of the coalition. It is about Nigerians who in their millions are faced with the dire conditions in the country and want to seek to change it for the better.”
Ibe denied that his principal is involved in the coalition with the sole purpose of contesting the presidency in 2027.
“Those who are saying so are putting the cart before the horse. Atiku Abubakar himself has said that he has not come to that point of declaration yet. So, it would be mischievous of anybody to say so.”
For Yinusa, the Obidient Movement is on stand-by.
“We are working hard to make sure we will never be robbed of electoral victory again. OM is everywhere now, even in the presidency. Anybody interested in good governance in Nigeria is a member. We are reorganising seriously. And anywhere Peter Obi goes, the OM will go with him, you can take that to the bank.” Just as the movement in his name is re-organising, Obi is also making his presence felt among Nigerians with his sympathy visits to troubled spots, generous monetary donations to cause with high level optics and sustain critiques of perceived bad policies and projects of the central government.
Amos Esele is the Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
