2027: A divided opposition will aid Tinubu’s return, by Olu Fasan

It is a common political maxim, bearing more than a kernel of truth. Divided parties don’t win elections. Equally, a divided opposition can’t defeat a determined incumbent, however appalling its performance. That truism has played out twice in Nigeria’s recent past and seems likely to repeat itself in next year’s presidential election.

In 2015, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, a party that bestrode Nigeria’s politics like a colossus and ruled the country continuously for 16 years, lost power. It was utterly divided, riven by existential internal crisis, and faced a united and absolutely laser-focused coalition of opposition parties, the All Progressives Congress, APC. Yet, despite the emergence of the APC, the PDP could, arguably, still have managed, perhaps just managed, to retain power in 2015 had it not convulsed and splintered into smithereens. But, alas, the party was too fractured to withstand a united opposition. Fast forward to 2023.

A monumentally underperforming and acutely unpopular ruling party, APC, fielding a deeply controversial presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, retained power because a fragmented opposition split and dissipated their votes. In that election, Tinubu won with just 36.6 per cent of the popular votes, while his three main opponents – Atiku Abubakar of PDP, Peter Obi of Labour Party and Rabiu Kwankwaso of New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP – collectively controlled 63. 4 per cent of the vote share. It takes no genius to know that if the main opposition leaders had come together, they would have denied the APC another term and, thus, Tinubu the presidency in 2023. But, alas, they ignored the simple rule of synergy; a unified opposition is more than the sum of its parts.

Well, yet again, history is about to repeat itself. All the opposition leaders say that President Tinubu’s administration is a disaster and that having him at the helm of affairs for another term of four years would be irredeemably catastrophic for Nigeria. But while they all agree a united front was needed to unseat Tinubu in 2027, none of them is willing to put his money where his mouth is; none of them is willing to subordinate his presidential ambition to the common goal of unseating Tinubu. In his recent interview with Charles Aniagolu on Arise TV, Atiku, a former vice president, said he was confident a unified coalition under the African Democratic Congress, ADC, would defeat President Tinubu in 2027. “What I know is that with a coalition candidate facing Bola Tinubu, Bola Tinubu is dead on arrival,” Atiku said self-assuredly, adding: “Look at the leadership of the coalition, if each and every one of them brings their zone to electoral victory, where will Bola stand?” 

Essentially, Atiku admitted that Tinubu could only be defeated if he (Atiku), Obi, Kwankwaso, Rotimi Amaechi and other ADC leaders united to deliver their respective zones in the election. But he saw himself as the arrowhead of the coalition. In 2025, when coalition talks were still embryonic, Atiku declared: “I am ready to lead the coalition against Tinubu in 2027.” He assumed he would clinch the coalition’s ticket. But Obi, a former Anambra state governor, left no one in doubt that, come rain or shine, he, too, would be on the ballot as a presidential candidate in 2027. So, thanks to a clash of ambitions, the coalition always looked certain to hit the rocks once faced with picking a candidate.

Yet, all over the world, incumbents are usually defeated only when opposition parties come together and pick a candidate without rancour. Recently, Israel’s two leading opposition politicians, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, decided to merge their political parties ahead of this year’s election in a bid to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Crucially, without resentment, Lapid conceded the candidacy of the unified party to Bennett, even though both of them are former prime ministers and could have allowed their respective egos to scupper unity. But the task of unseating the long-serving and deeply controversial Netanyahu was greater than their individual ambitions. That’s what happens when opposition parties really want to beat a powerful incumbent. But not so in Nigeria, except in 2015 when several opposition parties truly meshed together under the APC to beat the incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan. Since then, all talks of coalitions are pipe dreams.

Recently, on April 25, a so-called “Opposition Political Parties National Summit” was held in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, attended by the ADC, a faction of the PDP and some other opposition parties. In a communiqué, the participants said: “We shall work towards fielding one Presidential Candidate for the 2027 elections, which shall be agreed and supported by a participating opposition parties to rescue our nation and her long suffering masses.” This was redolent of 2018 when, ahead of the 2019 presidential election, PDP announced it was merging with 39 other parties to form the “Coalition for United Political Parties, CUPP”, which would present one presidential candidate to dislodge then President Buhari from Aso Rock.

But just as the 2018 pledge fell flat, the “Ibadan Declaration” was not worth the paper it’s written on because the pledge began to unravel no sooner than it was made. Of course, the recent Supreme Court rulings, which nullified the Ibadan convention of a factional PDP and put ADC’s future in doubt, threw spanner in the works. But even without the unhelpful judicial interventions, the idea of one opposition presidential candidate wasn’t going to fly, not least because of the burning presidential ambitions of the dramatis personae and the thorny issue of zoning. There was also the animus between leaders of the ADC coalition or, at least, their followers. Obi’s rumbustious supporters, the Obidients, were accused of bullying Atiku and insulting Amaechi. The acute toxicity made a cooperative environment and a spirit of camaraderie almost impossible in what was supposedly a coalition. 

But, in the end, ambition trumps everything else. With Atiku looking certain to clinch the ADC ticket, either by consensus or through a primary, Obi knew he stood no chance of being on the ballot next year if he remained in the ADC. So, earlier this week, despite being part of the Ibadan summit that promised to field one opposition presidential candidate, Obi left ADC and joined the Nigerian Democratic Congress, NDC, a barely known party formed by Senator Seriake Dickson, a former Bayelsa State governor. Interestingly, Senator Kwankwaso, a former Kano state governor, followed Obi to NDC, confirming speculations that Kwankwaso would be Obi’s putative running mate. Inevitably, Obi and Kwankwaso’s decisions to leave ADC and join NDC have implications.

First, the broad coalition and united front that Atiku touted as a precondition for defeating Tinubu next year is now dead in the water. Second, by their self-imposed disunity, the opposition has helped President Tinubu in his undisguised determination to “scatter” the opposition parties and stop them from being a unified force. Even now, neither ADC nor NDC is on solid ground. The ADC is still bogged down in legal battles over its leadership, while, perversely, the Attorney General of the Federation supports a suit seeking to deregister the party. As for NDC, INEC puts the following words “By Court Order” in front of the party’s name on its website, suggesting that the party only exists by the order of a court and might cease to exist by the order of another court, something akin to a sword of Damocles!

Of course, in a free and fair poll, President Tinubu is not a shoo-in for re-election next year. But by failing to do what opposition parties do in other climes to defeat a powerful incumbent, Atiku, Obi and Kwankwaso have diminished their chances of unseating him. A united opposition would have given Tinubu a run for his money. But now, the opposition is less than the sum of its parts and utterly disadvantaged facing a ruthless incumbent that controls the instruments of state power, including, arguably, the sympathies of INEC and the judiciary! 

*Dr Fasan is the author of ‘In The National Interest: The Road to Nigeria’s Political, Economic and Social Transformation’, available at RovingHeights bookstores.

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