The Jonathan card: How PDP can defeat President Tinubu in 2027, by Olu Fasan

Sometimes, columnists fly a kite to test an idea or to provoke public discourse on an issue. Twice in recent months, I did so rather successfully. First, on July 3, I wrote a piece titled “2027: The theoretical case for Jonathan’s return to power” (Vanguard, July 3, 2025). I was probably the first columnist to float the idea, but everyone now talks about it.

The theoretical seems to be morphing into the practical! A week later, on July 10, I flew another kite in an article titled “Obi, Amaechi: Beware the desperate pledges of a one-term presidency,” (Vanguard, July 10, 2025). At the time, I was a lone voice on the issue. But read the past few weeks’ newspapers and you will see how Peter Obi’s pledge to do only one term as president has provoked intense national debate. 

Well, this is another kite-flying intervention, based on two propositions. The first is that if Nigerians want a genuinely exciting and competitive presidential election in 2027, they should plump for a contest between President Bola Tinubu and former President Goodluck Jonathan. It would be dynamite! The second is that if the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, wants to stand a realistic chance of winning the 2027 presidential election, it should field former President Jonathan as its candidate. He could be the party’s trump card!

Now, let me say for the umpteenth time: I have no affiliation with any political party and no allegiance to any politician. I take my responsibility as a columnist seriously, knowing that my aim is to influence change through the force of ideas. Of course, I have been utterly critical of President Tinubu, but so was I of President Buhari during his eight years in power and so was I of President Jonathan before them. Neither ethnicity nor partisan politics has ever motivated my interventions, but the national interest!

Having, hopefully, cleared any misconception about my motivations, let me turn to the propositions. The premise of those propositions is my long-held position that the presidency should remain in the South for a second term in 2027. Those who still question this imperfect, yet indispensable, rotational arrangement should remember that in 2019, no serious Southern candidate ran against the two Northern candidates, President Buhari and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, on the grounds that the North should complete its two terms. The same logic applies to 2027: the South should complete its two terms. The North will have the presidency on a platter of gold in 2031. 

Of course, Atiku can choose to swim against the tide and run in 2027. But he would face insurmountable obstacles: the South will not vote for him. In two of the three presidential elections that Atiku has actually contested, most of his votes came from the South. In 2007, when he ran against Umaru Yar’Adua and Buhari, he secured only 2.6m votes, nearly all of which came from the South-West, being the candidate of Tinubu’s Action Congress. In 2019, when Atiku ran against Buhari, he secured 11, 262, 978 votes, of which 5,707,393, a clear majority, came from the South. In 2023, when Atiku ran against the call for power shift, his support in the South collapsed and he couldn’t make up for it in the North, where, unlike the late Buhari, he doesn’t have a cult following. 

To be sure, Atiku can argue that Tinubu got away with shattering conventional wisdom with his Muslim-Muslim ticket, so what’s sacrosanct about power rotation? Well, politics is a game of numbers. And the question is: Can Atiku garner overwhelming votes in the North and secure enough votes in the South to win the presidency in 2027? Truth is, Atiku can’t inherit Buhari’s famed “12 million bloc votes” in the North and won’t secure enough votes in the South because of the strong second-term sentiment in the region. He is in a bind!

So, then, 2027, we can assume, would really be a contest between Southern candidates. Of course, President Tinubu is the incumbent that other Southern candidates must face. Based on media reports, Southerners interested in running against Tinubu are former President Jonathan; Peter Obi, Labour Party’s presidential candidate in 2023; Rotimi Amaechi, former Rivers State governor; and Seyi Makinde, current Oyo State governor. Well, I won’t waste precious column inches on Amaechi and Makinde: neither is a serious contender. That leaves Jonathan and Obi. 

Now, I am truly conflicted when it comes to Obi. His outstanding performance in the 2023 presidential election makes him a prime candidate for the 2027 poll. But “time and chance”, to quote the Bible, matter in politics. Last year, I wrote a piece titled “2027 presidency: Has Peter Obi missed the boat?” (Vanguard, April 4, 2024). I argued that he might have, because if he ran in 2027, he could only, based on power rotation, serve for one term, which would be unprecedented given that, constitutionally, he would be entitled to two terms.

But recently, Obi pulled a rabbit out the hat and said that, if elected in 2027, he would only do one term as president. I am not persuaded, not because he won’t try to keep his word but because his unprecedented decision not to seek a second term in 2031 would throw this country into a political crisis as opposing forces draw battle lines for and against the decision, unleashing political instability. The recent intense debate over Obi’s one-term-only pledge, which sharply divided public opinion, is a foretaste of what might happen if he became president. 

By contrast, Jonathan’s non-consecutive second term won’t engender the political tension that Obi’s first term could create simply because, constitutionally, Jonathan can only do one more term. But that aside, Jonathan’s candidacy in 2027 would utterly change the dynamics of the race and the fortunes of PDP were he the party’s candidate. A few years ago, I wrote a piece titled “The ‘demise’ of the Peoples Democratic Party” (Vanguard, August 3, 2023).

I argued that although PDP was technically alive, it was on “life support, on a deathbed”. Well, with Nyesom Wike and other Southern PDP leaders vowing to support Tinubu in 2027 and with several others, like Atiku, having defected to the African Democratic Congress, ADC, is there any doubt that PDP truly faces extinction? It is unthinkable in a democracy that a one-time governing party would not field a credible candidate in a presidential election but would allow its members to support a rival party’s candidate. The PDP, it seems, is dead!

Yet, PDP can rise from the dead if it frees itself from Wike’s stranglehold and nominates Jonathan as its presidential candidate in 2027. For a start, Jonathan in the race would upend Tinubu’s Southern strategy because it’s inconceivable that Wike’s influence can trump Jonathan’s in the South-South, and across the South, where Jonathan still has some residual goodwill. Despite Buhari’s famed “12m bloc votes” in the North, he only beat Jonathan by 2.5m votes in 2015. If the North sheaths its sword in 2027 and acts as the kingmaker, the likelihood is that Jonathan would give Tinubu a run for his money in the North.

From a competitive politics standpoint, a race between Jonathan, Tinubu and Obi in 2027 would be electrifying. Jonathan’s might throw PDP a lifeline, if it takes it!

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