Without genuine policy change, Nigerians might soon find themselves missing Tinubu after 2027, just as many now unexpectedly find themselves missing Muhammadu Buhari, once regarded as Nigeria’s worst president.
By FAROOQ A. KPEROGI
The Nigerian political space and preparations for the 2027 general elections have been electrified with the high-decibel announcement of the migration of major opposition politicians to the African Democratic Congress (ADC). Sure, the ADC is a shiny new bottle holding old wine, yet it appears to be the only party that stands a chance to effectively challenge or dislodge the APC.
The Peoples Democratic Party, which is supposed to be the main opposition party, is in the firm grip of Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesom Wike. He finances and controls it and would never allow it to pose a threat to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s reelection in 2027.
The Labor Party is in disarray and enervated by what seems like irresolvable internal fissures. The previously inconsequential Social Democratic Party, which burst forth from obscurity to national prominence after former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai defected to it and encouraged opposition politicians to consider it a new political home, suddenly became inhospitable for fleeing APC political refugees.
In a widely shared April 26, 2025, column titled “In 2027, Tinubu Won’t Win; The Opposition Will Lose,” I noted that, “Northern opposition politicians like Nasir El-Rufai also don’t seem to realize that the Social Democratic Party (SDP) they have embraced as the vehicle to displace Tinubu is, in fact, Tinubu’s spare car.” Despite initial skepticism, they eventually realized this truth.
So, there is no question that the opposition had no credible platform from which to launch a challenge to Tinubu. Until now, it had seemed as though Tinubu’s path to victory in 2027 was unchallenged. An Atiku-Obi or Obi-Atiku ticket, if managed adroitly, would be a fierce, forceful political tsunami.
While the convergence of opposition politicians in the ADC has enlivened the playing field, strengthened the vibrancy of our electoral politics, and forestalled what had appeared like an inexorable march to a de facto one-party democracy, several people have questioned the quality and antecedents of the people who constitute the core of the group.
However pollyannaish you might choose to be, it is difficult not to be amused that Abubakar Malami, Buhari’s minister of justice who was notorious for unrestrained Igbophobia as an official policy, who rechristened “Abacha loot” as “Abacha asset,” and who was mired in unspeakably stratospheric corruption and abuse of power only a few years ago, is one of the arrowheads of the opposition.
How about Nasir El-Rufai who is the mascot for toxic, unabashed Christophobia in northern Nigeria, a purveyor of noxious ethno-regional intolerance, and a violent man who countenanced the mass slaughter of Shia Muslims and on whose watch opponents disappeared without a trace? Does his opportunistic opposition to Tinubu, legitimate as it is, erase his troubling past, which he is likely to repeat in the future should he have another chance?
Rotimi Amaechi is a leaky-mouthed buffoon who assaulted the sensibilities of Nigerians as Buhari’s minister of transportation for eight years, and Babachir Lawal of grass-cutting corruption infamy is another mover of the ADC. But somehow, we are supposed to believe that these are revolutionary or born-again politicians who will be different from the current cast of characters who are making living hell for the majority of Nigerians.
There is, however, a fair counter-argument. While the ADC contains people whose immediate past history evokes horror and revulsion, it also has people who are reasonably smart and forward-thinking.