By Michael Chibuzo
The permutations for the 2027 presidential election is now gathering steam, as key pieces such as Knights, rooks and Bishops have began to slide around the 2027 political chessboard plotting how to checkmate the Kings. Talking about Kings, it is obvious that as far as the 2027 political chessboard is concerned, the two opposing Kings are the City Boy President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the perennial presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Others are supporting cast.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2023 emerged as winner of the tight presidential election in spite of all the odds that were stacked against him. Tinubu was able to defeat his opponents on the ballot and those not on the ballot who placed every possible barrier on his path to victory. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why many feel that 2027 will be a much harder task for anyone seeking to defeat President Bola Tinubu.
2023 was a straight battle between Tinubu and Atiku with Peter Obi and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso playing key supporting cast roles in the eventual emergence of Bola Tinubu as President. Peter Obi made sure that Atiku could not lay his hands on the South South/South East traditional bloc votes of the PDP in addition to mopping up the Christian votes in the north while Kwankwaso fenced out the bulky Kano votes from entering Atiku’s electoral bag.
2027 from all indications is also going to be a straight battle between President Bola Tinubu and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who is perhaps contesting his last presidential election. It is for this reason that Atiku began early to push for a “united coalition” that can defeat President Tinubu in 2027. Atiku began wooing Peter Obi and Kwankwaso immediately the Supreme Court threw out their election petitions.
A Coalition of the Stranded
Atiku Abubakar, apart from inviting Peter Obi and Kwankwaso to join him in his coalition, also began to mop up those he believes hold one grudge or the other against the President and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) including many who appear to have lost relevance in the APC or ostracised by the Tinubu administration. Some of those in this category include, Nasir El-Rufai, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, Abubakar Malami etc.
These coalition recruits including Atiku Abubakar himself have one thing in common – they are all stranded in their various political parties! Let me start with the Coalition Prefect, Atiku Abubakar. His current political party, PDP is in deep crisis with his new political nemesis, Nyesom Wike holding firmly to the NWC lever. Currently, Atiku cannot confidently instigate a legitimate NEC meeting due to the unresolved National Secretary fiasco.
Mr. Peter Obi on his part is almost out of the Labour Party. He miscalculated with his gamble to illegally ditch LP National Chairman, Julius Abure who got a second term in office thanks to the inaction of Peter Obi during the party’s Nnewi convention last year. If there is any further proof that Peter Obi’s soul has left the Labour Party, it is the fact that his preferred candidate for Anambra 2025 governorship election, Mr. John Nwosu abandoned the Labour Party for Africa Democratic Alliance (ADC).
There is of course the little man, Malam Nasir El-Rufai who left the APC to join the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in March after feeling betrayed by the President and his successor in Kaduna State, Uba Sani. Recent events have shown that the former Kaduna State Governor is now stranded in SDP just three months after joining the party.
Another major stranded politician being co-opted into the coalition is former Rivers State Governor and two-time Minister, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi who has not recovered from his loss to Bola Tinubu in the 2022 APC presidential primary. Amaechi also has the double misfortune of seeing his political influence in Rivers obliterated thanks to his brutal former Chief of Staff, Nyesom Wike who is currently in a loving alliance with the President.
The likes of former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, former SGF, Babachir Lawal, former Senate President, David Mark and possibly former Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi are also names associated with the coalition. These individuals are stranded in their political journey and are searching for outlets to vent their frustrations.
Does the coalition stand any chance to unseat Tinubu?
Well, the simple answer is NO. This is not hard to surmise because less than 20 months to the 2027 general elections, the key actors in the coalition business are still confused and divided on how best to form the coalition. While some camps are recommending the adoption of SDP as the coalition platform, others are rooting for ADC and yet another bloc is rooting for registration of a new political party for the coalition.
If the coalition manages to reach a consensus on which political vehicle to mount the coalition on, it will then face the crucial hurdle of managing the many oversized political ambitions within its fold. Atiku for one is seeing 2027 as his last presidential election dance as he would be 84 years old when the 2031 presidential polls open and no major political party will field him as candidate. Therefore, he would want the coalition ticket to be reserved for him.
Peter Obi, like a former vegetarian lion has tasted blood and would not ordinarily want to go back to feeding on vegetables. It will therefore take a lot of convincing to get Peter Obi to shelve his presidential ambitions and be demoted to a Vice Presidential candidate to Atiku Abubakar – a class he felt he graduated from back in 2019. Already Peter Obi, like the Igbo masquerade, Adanma, has been playing hard to get for the coalition.
Nasir El-Rufai, even though he is a bit confused about what he wants in 2027, he has not ruled out a presidential ambition on the wings of the coalition. In his last interview on Arise TV, El-Rufai in one breathe said he has no personal ambition for 2027 and later in the same interview admitted that he has muted a possible presidential ambition during discussions with coalition members. Unfortunately, El-Rufai’s path is very narrow considering the bigger ambition of Atiku who is also from the north.
Rotimi Amaechi on his part is not rigid when it comes to his presidential ambition and can easily take a step lower to serve as running mate to Atiku if Peter Obi feels he has outgrown the VP candidate class. Amaechi, currently 60, feels he can easily become President in 6 or 10 years time if he serves as Atiku’s running mate in 2027 and the coalition succeeds in evicting President Bola Tinubu from office.
Now, coming to the possibility of defeating President Tinubu, the fact that the whole strategy of the coalition rests on harnessing northern votes makes it unlikely to succeed. First and foremost, it is only a northern opposition presidential candidate that can hope to harness such bulk votes from the so-called core note. This leaves Atiku as the only viable option for the coalition. Unfortunately, an Atiku candidacy will not be a popular sell in most parts of the south especially with President Bola Tinubu coming from the South.
In the unlikely event that the coalition settles for a southern presidential candidate like Peter Obi or Rotimi Amaechi, the northern voters no matter how angry they are cannot donate their bulk votes to the coalition. They would rather have President Bola Tinubu conclude his second term and then pave the way for an undisputed rotation of power to the north.
Equally, there are many northern 2031 presidential hopefuls currently in the APC-led administration that will work hard to hand President Bola Tinubu a second term victory to pave way for their own ambitions in 2031 since power sharing only takes place within a political party. This means that Atiku, who to me is the presumptive presidential candidate of the coalition cannot even guarantee the mass support of the northern political class, their supporters and the general electorates. That is advantage Tinubu!
Finally, the fact that the coalition is not rooted in the grassroot makes it even more doomed to fail. Unlike the 2013 merger of political parties that led to the formation of APC and the consequent influx of aggrieved governors and other powerful politicians from the PDP, the 2025 coalition efforts of Atiku and his fellow aggrieved politicians lack depth and spread. There won’t be any merger of political parties. It is also unlikely that any governor would join the coalition party nor a reasonable number of lawmakers.
In fact, there is no excitement around the notion of a coalition rather members of the opposition parties including governors and lawmakers are joining President Bola Tinubu in APC at an alarming rate leading to the coalition cheerleaders accusing Tinubu of trying to turn Nigeria into a one-party state. That shows how ineffective, the coalition experiment has so far been. President Bola Tinubu is not undefeatable but one thing is certain, it will take more than a ragtag coalition of displaced uninspiring politicians to defeat a man like Tinubu who has never lost an election.