2027: No Southern Candidate Can Unseat Tinubu, Atiku Camp Warns

The camp of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has cautioned opposition parties against zoning the 2027 presidential ticket to the South, warning that such a move would hand President Bola Tinubu an easy re-election victory. In a statement on Monday by Atiku’s media aide, Olusola Sanni, the camp argued that it is politically unrealistic for a southern opposition candidate to defeat a sitting southern president. “Nigerian political history offers no precedent for such an outcome. No incumbent president has ever been defeated by an opposition challenger from the same geopolitical bloc,” Sanni said. The statement noted that by 2027, the South would have held the presidency for approximately 18 years in the Fourth Republic compared to the North’s 10 years, describing further southern retention of power as deepening an existing imbalance. It also accused some political actors of hypocrisy, particularly those who supported former President Goodluck Jonathan’s southern presidency in 2011 but now push strongly for zoning on grounds of equity. While acknowledging the South-East’s legitimate aspiration for the presidency, the Atiku camp urged opposition parties to prioritise building a broad national coalition based on strategy and realism rather than sentiment, in order to have a genuine chance of defeating the incumbent.

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