By Ehichioya Ezomon
The die is cast for the primaries of the political parties participating in Nigeria’s 2027 General Election, with the main opposition figures congregating under the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for the herculean task of “removing from power” President Bola Tinubu and his All Progressives Congress (APC)-led administration.
Barring any unforeseen circumstances that could upend the status quo, it’s certain that the APC will use the period of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) scheduled April 23 to May 30, 2026, party primaries, and resolution of disputes therefrom, to “coronate” Tinubu as its flagbearer for the January 16, 2027, presidential poll that’s barely 10 months away.
One month to the start of the primaries, none of the APC governors – many with presidential ambition – has indicated interest. But individually and collectively, they’ve declared Tinubu as the party’s “sole candidate” for the election. For example, on May 22, 2025, then-22 APC governors unanimously endorsed Tinubu as the sole candidate in 2027.
As reported by PUNCH same day, the Chairman of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) and Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma, seconded by the PGF Vice Chairman and Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani, moved the motion for the endorsement at the APC National Summit, themed, “Renewed Hope Agenda: The Journey So Far,” held at the State House Banquet Hall in Abuja.
The report stated that, “The motion was put to a voice vote and adopted, with a standing ovation by summit participants, including Vice President Kashim Shettima, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, members of the National Assembly, serving and former governors, and APC members from across Nigeria’s 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.”
A similar endorsement is possible today, as Tinubu, who enjoys the right of first refusal (ROFR) as incumbent on the APC platform, has 32 State governors, and five Area Council chairmen in the FCT backing his re-election for the last four years of his eight-year tenure (2023-2031). There’s even a tacit support for him among the four opposition governors of Accord Party (AP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Labour Party (LP) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that’s almost yielded the “main oppostion” tag to the ADC.
If all things remain the same on Primary Day, as they’re now in the ADC, former Vice President and thrice presidential candidate in 2007, 2019 and 2023, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, will pick the ticket of the party, which he led a coterie of chieftains of the Coalition of Opposition Politicians (COP) into, to “remove Tinubu from power.”
For all intents and purposes, Atiku owns the ADC that I humbly labeled as “Atiku Democratic Congress” since 2025 when he began moves to join the party following his “irreconcilable differences” with the PDP under which he served as vice president for eight years (1999-2007), and ran for President in 2019 and 2023, respectively.
It’s inconceivable – no matter the mode of primary: consensus, delegates or direct the ADC adopts to pick its candidate – that Atiku, who’s aspiring for a fourth shot at the presidency, will lose the ticket to any other aspirant, such as former Anambra State Governor and 2023 presidential candidate of the LP, Peter Obi, or former Rivers State Governor and ex-Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.
If Obi boasts of amassing the votes of ADC members in the South-East, parts of South-South, South-West and North-Central zones; Atiku’s political tentacles spread across the North, and South, where he still holds sway despite the emergence, and a surprise strong showing by Obi in the South-East and South-South during the 2023 presidential election.
Besides, “Hungry man” Amaechi, who attempts to punch holes in Obi’s strongholds, is galvanising the South-South members of the ADC, and “remnants” of the late President Muhammadu Buhari’s loyalists” in the defunct Congress for Progressives Change (CPC), one of the three legacy parties: the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the CPC, and a faction of the APGA, which dissolved to form the APC in February 2013, and in 2015, removed President Goodluck Jonathan from power, and ended PDP’s 16 years in government.
Amaechi, who claims to have structures nationwide, lately demonstrated his sterner stuff and seriousness for President, when he defiantly continued his membership drive and registration after alleged political thugs destroyed his home in Obima and ADC’s office in the town in Rivers State, and also reportedly attacked his convoy on his way to the registration venue.
As he did prior to the 2022 primary of the APC, whose ticket he boasted he’d secure ahead of then-Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu – but came short a distant runner-up to the now President of Nigeria – Amaechi’s vowed to take Atiku and Obi to the cleaners at the primary because, in his words, “I’m more qualified and fit for President than the other aspirants, and I’m the only candidate who can send Tinubu back to Lagos in 2027.”
Unlike in 2022 when he said he won’t step down for Tinubu, as some of the APC aspirants did, and that he won’t also endorse and campaign for him if he emerged the party candidate (and kept his avowal during campaigns and the election); Amaechi, even as he insists he won’t step down for any ADC contestant, has pledged to “support wholeheartedly” the candidate who picks the ticket, “to ensure that Tinubu is removed from power in 2027.”
Obi and Amaechi, riding on rotation of the presidency between Northern and Southern Nigeria, have “pledged,” if elected President, to spend only “four years in power” (2027-2031), instead of the constitutionally-guaranteed eight-year tenure. Polity watchers see this as vote-catching sentiment, and not a genuine commitment to keeping a gentleman’s agreement, as history’s shown since the Fourth Republic began in 1999.
Save the courage and patriotism displayed by members of the National Assembly (NASS), former President Olusegun Obasanjo, despite his denial, wanted to prolong his presidency (1999-2007), as he sought a “third term” that would’ve altered the constitutional term limit of eight years, and the unwritten rotation of power between the North and South.
Following the death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2010, then-Vice President Jonathan was elevated to President via the NASS adoption of the “doctrine of necessity,” to quash the resistance of a group of “Aso Rock cabals” to Jonathan becoming Acting President in the absence of hospitalised Yar’Adua overseas.
After completing the remainder of Yar’Adua’s supposed first four years in office (2007-2011), Jonathan, in 2015, won election for a four-year term that the North felt shortchanged the region of the eight-year tenure it should enjoy under rotation of the presidency, even as many Nigerians thought Jonathan’s swearing-in was his second and final as President.
That wasn’t to be, as Jonathan vied for re-election in 2015, but was defeated by a combination of a scorch-earthed campaign by the main opposition APC, and turncoat northern members of the PDP, who reportedly lured Jonathan into “braking a gentleman’s agreement” he allegedly entered into with the region’s power brokers not to run for election in 2015.
To the North, it wasn’t a matter of law and constitutional right – as Jonathan had argued, and in that regard obtained a court’s clearance in advance of the 2015 poll – but a case of “once beaten twice shy,” and maintaining fidelity with rotation of the presidency between the North and South. The North claims – and rightly so – that it lags behind the South in governance of Nigeria since 1999, owing to Jonathan’s election in 2011, instead of a northerner to complete Yar’Adua’s “unexpired” eight-year tenure in 2015.
From the experiences learned from the Obasanjo “third term” gambit, and Jonathan’s failed re-election in 2015, northerners don’t want to gamble with an Obi or an Amaechi promising to spend only four years in power if elected in 2027. They can’t trust either with such power, only for them to turn round in 2031 that they’ve a mandatory eight-year tenure, and should be allowed to complete it.
What does Obi or Amaechi do if they miss the ADC ticket? Amaechi’s declared he’d support whoever secured the ticket “in a free, fair and credible primary.” Has Obi made such a pledge? Has he decided, as many have speculated, to run with Atiku as in 2019? In that case, will he make a “Tambuwal-last-minute” withdrawal of his bid for President, to undermine Amaechi’s aspiration, and enable Atiku to get the ticket without breaking any sweat?
(Recall that in the PDP presidential primary for the 2023 poll, Atiku and then-Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike were “evenly matched,” and as the delegates to the national convention held their breathe to see who’d come tops, then-Sokoto State Governor and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, announced his withdrawal, and freed his “pledged delegates” to Atiku, to undercut and tip the scale against Wike, now Minister of the FCT, Abuja, and thus sowed the crises that’ve decimated the PDP.)
Will Obi vote with his legs, as he did in 2023, and return to the LP or join another political party, such as the newly-registered Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), if its major promoter and former Bayelsa State Governor, Senator Seriake Dickson (NDC, Bayelsa West), isn’t aspiring for President in 2027?
For Atiku and Amaechi, their resolve is straightforward: They’ll compete at the primary without any inhibition. But for Obi, turning from being a candidate to placing his bets on a running mate slot that he’d lose to Amaechi or any other ADC member, maybe the toughest decision of his whirlwind presidential pursuit till date. The die is cast, and the clock is ticking uncomfortably for him!
Mr Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria. Can be reached on X, Threads, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp @EhichioyaEzomon. Tel: 08033078357
