July 20, (THEWILL) — Shortly before former President Muhammadu Buhari died, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, was already facing an implosion ahead of 2027. Aloof and hobbled by illness carried over from office, the late President had told his allies to be free to make their individual political choices, even as he pledged his loyalty to the governing All Progressives Congress, APC.
The CPC which he founded and led into a merger with three other legacy parties – Action Congress of Nigeria, a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance and the All Nigeria Peoples Party – to form the governing All Progressives Congress, APC in 2013, had become a divided house before he passed on. More so, after he reaffirmed the same stand on his allies before members of the Governor Hope Uzodinma-led Progressive Governors Forum when they paid him a post-Sallah visit in April, 2025 to plead with him to halt a feared mass defection of CPC loyalists after el-Rufai’s defection.
In a follow-up to the Progressive Governors Forum, a CPC group, led by former Nasarawa governor, Umaru Tanko Al-Makura and his Katsina counterpart, Aminu Masari and 21 others met on April 16, 2025 and pledged their loyalty to President Bola Tinubu and the APC, saying that, “attempts to sow disunity within the party and the country do not reflect the will or position of genuine CPC core members and are wholly unacceptable.” The next day, former Attorney- General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, a staunch CPC chieftain, rebuked the group of 23. “You can’t speak for the CPC block,” he roared, claiming that only those still loyal to Buhari, like himself, have the authority to speak for the CPC.
With Buhari’s passing on July 13, 2025, the division in the CPC has further widened. The late President groomed no successor and the members of an already divided house could not agree to choose a successor among themselves. Moreover, there is none among the present crop of politicians with the stature to step into his shoes.
In reality, however, the factors that contributed to Buhari’s fame have since evaporated during the course of 26 years of democratic governance, making no room for the emergence of another hero.
A source with the knowledge of the inner workings of the northern establishment confided in THEWILL that the threat posed to the North’s political dominance by the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency, feared for its independence in addition to the assertiveness of radical elements in the South-West, had compelled many northern leaders to approach and convince Buhari to join politics as a rallying point.
The source said, “President Obasanjo was too independent minded hence they went for Buhari, especially after the recourse to Sharia law by some governors failed to do the work,” the source said, adding: “The late President was the one with the significant clout to challenge Obasanjo’s government and over time in contesting for the presidency, he built a significant cult-like followership that eventually earned him the number one office in the country. But today, the North is battling with internal challenges, such as banditry and insurgency. By 2022 and 2023, the Buhari myth had faded away after people saw through his pre-election policies like the new Naira design aimed to check the then APC national leader, Bola Tinubu’s presidential ambition and his support for the presidential bid of a former Senate President, Ahmad Lawan.”
He however conceded that, given the way myths play with the imagination, Buhari will take some time to fade from the people’s memory. “Our people will not easily forget the man they called “Mai Gaskiya,” (true leader), particularly in the face of the ordinary politicians milling around.”
THE TWO GROUPS
With prominent CPC chieftains like El-Rufai and Malami, defecting alongside their supporters from the APC to the Social Democratic Party, SDP, and ADC, respectively, the competition between the two formidable groups in the APC, that is President Tinubu’s ACN and the CPC is becoming fierce, sources say.
Two other groups that formed the APC, namely the ANPP and a rump of APGA have faded away. ANPP is virtually non-existent with the death of its leader, Ogbonaya Onu, a former Minister of Science and Technology. Only Governor Mai Bala Buni of Yobe State is the surviving member of that party. And he is doing his second term in office. The APGA faction singlehandedly led into the APC merger by a former Senator representing Imo West at the National Assembly, Rochas Okorocha, is also a faded glory. He has gone out of political circulation.
In the event, analysts say, many CPC leaders had lost out in the power game with the ACN, which is perceived to have leveraged its influence to get plum ministerial and agency appointments under the current government. Apart from claiming that they were excluded from choice federal appointments by the government, the aggrieved CPC members are also miffed by the government’s habit of blaming the Muhammadu Buhari Administration for “managing the economy badly.”
These aggrieved members are part of the crowd led by el-Rufai, Malami, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, a former Minister of State for Education; and former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal.
By chance, the coming of the ADC has given them a platform to seek relevance and fight back. And many are abandoning the APC up North in droves, THEWILL checks can confirm. Their battle cry is that the North-West where their late leader, Buhari comes from, delivered the highest vote to make Tinubu president in the 2023 general election. Defection to the ADC will help to salvage, if not consolidate the votes, acclaimed to be 12 million, much of which is concentrated in the North-West geo-political zone.
“I consider myself one of the leading lights of the CPC from day one, even before the party was registered. We were Buhari’s people. I was with him in APP, ANPP, and CPC. I understand the spirit of the party,” said former SGF, Lawal while stating that the “CPC bloc and other stakeholders in the North-West are poised to dislodge the APC in the 2027 presidential poll.”
In fact, the Sunday, July 13, 2025, that Buhari died witnessed a mass defection from both the APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to the ADC in his Katsina home state.
From the PDP side came former Secretary to the State Government, Dr. Mustapha Inuwa; former Minister of Defence, Lawal Batagarawa; former senator representing Daura Zone, Ahmed Babba Kaita and Hon. Ahmed Aminu Yar’Adua and their supporters.
From the CPC were a former Special Adviser on Girl Child Education and Child Development to former Governor Aminu Bello Masari, Amina Lawal; former Director-General of the NYSC, Brigadier-General Maharazu Tsiga (rtd) and Hon. Babangida Talau of the NNPP also dumped their parties for the ADC.
The second CDC group has pledged loyalty to the APC and President Tinubu. They include serving governors like Katsina State Governor, Dikko Radda; Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule, Al-Makura; and Masari.
Others are Babale Ila, Ibrahim Gobir; Senator Ibrahim Musa; Sanusi Aliyu; Mohammed Tukur; Senator Ahmed Sani; Ibrahim Chachangi; Yusuf Bala; and the party’s current North West National Vice Chairman, Garuba Datti, former Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu.
Chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, M.B. Shehu; Chairman of the NDLEA, retired General Buba Marwa; former presidential adviser on Public Prosecution, Okoi Obono-Obla; former DG of the Voice of Nigeria, Osita Okechukwu; Senator Ibrahim Musa; and Nasiru Argungu are also pro-Tinubu.
Others are Senator Mustafa Salihu; Almajiri Geidam; Waziri Bulama; Dr. Nasiru Argungu; Dr. Captain Bala Jibrin; Uche Ufearoh; Yusuf Salih; and Alkali Ajikol and Ex- Education Minister, Malam Adamu Adamu.
SLIPPERY CPC POLITICS
Investigation shows that the post-Buhari CPC is still a shifting theatre of cold political calculations, muted campaigns and strategic alliances.
THEWILL gathered that three state governors from the North-Eest and two from the North-Central are still hurt by what sources referred to “as the public humiliation” of Vice President Kashim Shettima over an alleged plan by the APC to replace him in 2027. One of these aggrieved governors is a CPC member who is a point of contact with the others. The only weakness they have is that three of them are doing their second term in office, which may weaken their powers to effectively challenge the party and President Tinubu in the 2026 primaries and the 2027 presidential poll.
The Director of Publicity of the governing APC, Bala Ibrahim disclosed the impact of Buhari’’s death on the party.
He said, “Yes, the political atmosphere will change for our party. But it is not a vacuum that will deform the party. It is a vacuum that will push the party into sobriety… The party is doing something to reconcile, reassess the situation, and see to it that there is a very good sense of mending.”
WHY THE FIGURES COUNT
The death of Buhari has thrown his 12 million Northern votes for grab.
President Tinubu won the election with 8.79 million votes, followed by Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, who scored 6.98 million votes, and Peter Obi of the LP with 6.1 million votes and then Rabiu Kwankwaso of the NNPP, who got 1,496,687.
The North had a total of 13, 716,667 votes as against 9, 020,741 for the South in 2023.
Of the northern share, President Tinubu got 5,346,404 votes followed by Abubakar with 4, 834, 767 votes; Obi of LP with 2,080,247 votes and Kwankwaso of the NNPP with 1, 545, 649 votes.
Comparatively, Obi led the pack in the South with 4,020, 687 votes, followed by Tinubu with 3,026,969 votes, Abubakar with 1,751,047 votes and Kwankwaso with 42, 038 votes. These same candidates are still vying to contest again in 2027.
Interestingly, the North-West zone gave President Tinubu the highest number of votes in the 2023 general election.
Tinubu got 30 per cent of the total number of 8,794,726 votes he scored in the 2023 election from the North-West. This is almost one-third of the total votes he scored in the entire poll. In comparison, the South-West, where he hails from, gave him 2,542,979.
THE PRESIDENCY’S GAME PLAN
In the face of the ongoing calculations, following Buhari’s exit, the President’s men are said to be strategising. Apart from coming up with a plan to woo Kwankwaso and make him VP to President Tinubu in 2027, considering the former Kano governor’s grip on the state’s considerable bloc vote as a foothold to the critical North-West, they are said to have devised a plan to woo Christian voters in the middle-belt by grooming a visible ‘Christian politician’ from the zone with the promise of handing over power to the chosen one in 2031. In addition, he has just appointed IBB’s son, Mohammad Babangida and some Northerners into government agencies.
Muhammad was appointed as the new Chairman of the Bank of Agriculture. Lydia Kalat Musa from Kaduna State was named Chairman of the Oil and Gas Free Zones Authority (OGFZA), while Jamilu Wada Aliyu from Kano State was appointed Chairman of the National Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC).
Also from Kano State, Hon. Yahuza Ado Inuwa was appointed Chairman of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), while Sanusi Musa (SAN), also from Kano, was named Chairman of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR).
In addition, Prof. Al-Mustapha Alhaji Aliyu from Sokoto State was appointed Director-General of the Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa (DTCA), and Sanusi Garba Rikiji from Zamfara State was named Director-General of the Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiations (NOTN).
Mrs. Tomi Somefun from Oyo State was appointed Managing Director of the National Hydro-Electric Power Areas Development Commission (HYPPADEC), while Dr. Abdulmumini Mohammed Aminu-Zaria from Kaduna State was named Executive Director of the Nigerian Integrated Water Resources Management Commission (NIWRMC).
Analyses have convinced the President’s men that 14 out of 19 northern states have a sizeable middle belt population that is culturally organic rather than being mere political.
This plan is said to have unsettled political stakeholders in the North who believe that the game plan is to use a Muslim like Kwankwaso to retain power in 2027 only.
Speaking on this game plan, the spokesperson of the Middle Belt Leaders Forum, MBF, Luka Binniyat told THEWILL that the basis for the group’s support for a southern candidate in the 2023 and 2027 polls, alongside Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo and Pan Niger Delta Forum PANDEF, is that in 2031, a middle-belter would in turn be supported by these groups for the presidency in 2031. Even so, he disclosed that if any party were to offer the VP ticket to the middle-belt in 2027, the MBF would support such a party.
He however said that if any political party is considering picking a ‘Christian candidate’ from the middle-belt in 2031, it should formally announce it publicly so that it can be held in trust.
He said, “The middle-belt comprises 14 out of the 19 states in the North. Unlike the other states that make their case in political terms, we are more united culturally and on that basis vote for candidates or for collective choices. Promise about getting a Christian middle-belter as successor to the President in 2031 can only be taken seriously if a political party makes a pronouncement to that effect. This is because you can only get power through a political party.”
Binniyat, who was recently appointed as spokesperson for the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum, SMLF, comprising MBF, Ohanaeze, Afenifere and PANDEF, in replacement of late Yinka Odumakin, said the SMLF, would at the end of July hold a world press conference on the direction and stand of the group on the 2027 election.
Former Head of State who midwifed the current republic, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (retd) noted the impact of Buhari’s death on future politics while paying glowing tribute to the late President as a transparent and honest leader, even though his appointees failed to live up to expectations.
“ With the passing away of Buhari, politics in Nigeria will certainly change — I hope for the better,” he said.
Amos Esele is the Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
