2027: Opposition must plan well to minimise casualties

By : Alabi Williams

Date: 5 January 2026 4:14am WAT

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Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde

Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde

This year, political parties must finalise and concretise plans towards 2027. In a matter of months, the electoral umpire shall give guidelines on political activities and the timelines, which parties are expected to adopt.

The All Progressives Congress (APC), has left no stone unturned to consolidate itself. Since the coming of President Bola Tinubu, they have utilised every opportunity to plot and perfect domination. For the opposition, this is the year to come out of hiding and be bold. They must work hard to minimise consequences that could arise from late planning and indecision.

In the buildup to the Ekiti governorship election billed for July 20, 2026, Wole Oluyede, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is missing. The independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on December 29, 2025, released the list of candidates and their running mates for the off-season election, but the names of the PDP candidate and his deputy were not listed.

Oluyede had emerged as the flagbearer of the party in the primary election conducted by the former National Working Committee (NWC), led by Umar Damagum, on November 9, 2025. INEC sources claimed ongoing crisis in the party, which has resulted in two factions claiming ownership, with all manner of litigations flying around, might be responsible for the omission.

Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State, had no choice but to leave the PDP on December 1, 2025. He is now with the Accord Party (AP), whose ticket he has secured. He feared that the PDP could be denied a place on the ballot, so he beat a tactical retreat. The Osun governorship election is slated for August 8, 2026. Adeleke could not gamble with his second term ticket while the PDP keeps smouldering.

Reports had it that he contemplated joining the APC, but the stakes were too rough. He had not mended fences with members of the previous government he sent packing from the state. There was no way he would be accepted with opens arms by those he is contending with to control the local governments in the state.

As profitable as it is to have a siting governor decamp to swell its fortunes, the owners of APC in and outside Osun could not count on Adeleke’s complete loyalty. Being a person of private means and from a notable political family, he might not be easy to push around, or made to surrender the purse of the state for outsiders to share. For many months, his joining APC was on the radar but it didn’t manifest.

It was less than 24 hours to the expiry of timelines for parties’ primaries that Adeleke presented himself as an aspirant on the platform of the Accord Party (AP), and he worn resoundingly. Yet, as deftly as he tried to hedge his risks, someone still showed up to claim he got the ticket of same AP, at a parallel primary.

The party leadership has made efforts to disclaim the other man, but until INEC publishes the names of candidates and parties for the Osun Governorship election, it might not be victory yet for Adeleke. The opposition must wake up early to minimise casualties. That’s the point.

Makinde, Wike and Fayose rumble The reality for those in the PDP is that they need to free the party from the courts to consolidate their base ahead of 2027. Time appears to be running out for those who would need PDP in the next elections. They must be smart to avert the enemy’s spanner, which is at work in Ekiti and Osun at the moment.

Perhaps, it is the reality of not having a party to function with that jolted the Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, to cry out. He is in his second term, and was alleged to nurse a presidential ambition at a time. In case that is no longer feasible, he might consider a seat at the Senate, where former governors love to spend time.

But if care is not taken, he and other members may not have a party to ply their business if they fail to retrieve it from some undertakers. He accused the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, of being the problem of the party. He said Wike had promised to hold down the PDP for President Tinubu come 2027.

Wike has denied promising to hold down the PDP for President Tinubu. But he agreed that himself, Makinde, Okezie Ikpeazu, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and Samuel Ortom, went to see the President after the 2023 elections, to discuss certain things.

Recall that the five of them—Wike, Ortom, Ikpeazu, Makinde and Ugwuanyi— held down the PDP for candidate Tinubu in the 2023 elections. The G-5 governors as they were branded, rebelled against the PDP, all because Wike failed to win the presidential ticket of the party. They openly promised to work against their party, which they did in their respective capacities. If they held the PDP down in 2023, what stops them from removing it completely from the ballot in 2027?

So, there was nothing to deny in Makinde’s allegation. Since becoming the FCT minister, Wike has done worse than holding down the PDP. He threatened to deliver fire to PDP states if they recognised Governor Siminalayi Fubara. Wike’s camp is responsible for why Ekiti and Osun PDP may not field candidates in this year’s elections. So, what’s Wike denying that is not public knowledge?

Wike concluded that Makinde is frustrated. “I have told everybody, frustration, if you can see it, if you watch Seyi Makinde, you can see frustration.”

Perhaps, Makinde has experienced spiritual purgation and is now worried that the G-5 made a mistake when they handed their party to Tinubu in 2023. He is afraid the country has become a one-party state, seeing the PDP downgraded from controlling 12 states in 2023, to about four in 2025.

One cannot bet for how long the embattled Governor of Bauchi State, Bala Abubakar Mohammed, can put up with plots and pressures. Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri of Adamawa State is neither here nor there. When the time comes, he might just decide to anchor at the Senate. Any party that could guarantee him the ticket might be his next platform. It is only Governor Dauda Lawal of Zamfara State, who deserves some sympathy. He is the only opposition governor of a tottering party in the ‘volatile’ North-west. President Tinubu knows how to court vulnerable preys.

Makinde might be feeling like a prey too. At the time they surrendered their party in that illicit romance, it didn’t occur to him he would need a very longer spoon to dine with today’s Aso Rock. Wike thinks he is a political neophyte.

Fayose is simply an agent provocateur, adding fire to Makinde’s burns. The moment he stopped being governor after two terms in Ekiti, Fayose shifted his loyalty from PDP to Tinubu. The proponent of the slang, ‘stomach infrastructure’ offers no apologies. Thanks to him, we now know that N50 billion was promised to repair and compensate damages caused by bomb explosions of January 2024 in Ibadan.

Fayose suggests the money was meant to lock down the state for Tinubu come 2027, but Makinde is no longer interested. Makinde confessed that only N30 billion was released and he kept the money in a special account. Why a special account? Was the money meant to be kept in a special account or to effect repairs and compensate victims of bomb explosions?

On the part of President Tinubu, was the money appropriated for in the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) budget? Were it so, that could have given NEMA the authority and responsibility to track the money and eliminate the shroud of secrecy.

But now, Fayose makes it look like a grant from President Tinubu to hold down the state for him. Fayose is familiar with how the PDP gave out monies to lock down states in previous elections, including his own. EFCC is still tracking the disbursements and this N50 billion or N30 billion smells much like that.

Governors failing to learn from Tinubu With 12 governors, there was no reason the PDP should surrender itself for annihilation under President Tinubu. Tinubu was once the lone opposition in the South-west. He could not be intimidated to join PDP. He stayed on to build a virile regional opposition that became Action Congress of Nigeria, which became the pillar on which APC stands.

But one by one, the PDP strongholds, especially in the South-south have surrendered their independence to one man. This dispensation has produced very weak governors. President Tinubu has entrapped them with fat FAAC allocations, swelled by petrol subsidy taxes fleeced from ordinary Nigerians.

Governors never had it so good. For that, they have lost their heads. But Tinubu never lost his head as governor. Nobody could intimidate him, not when then President Obasanjo seized council allocations to Lagos’ 20 constitutionally recognised local government areas, which Tinubu redistributed to 57 Council Development Areas (CDAs).

Tinubu was undeterred. So, what calibre of men are these cowardly, fawning governors? The Nigeria Governors’ Forum, has become a shadow of its good old self, when it was managed by Bukola Saraki, and also Rotimi Amaechi. Governors who could look the President in the eye and refuse to blink.

What’s cooking for ADC? The African Democratic Congress (ADC), also needs to wake up. When it was unveiled on March 20, 2025 and formally adopted as the platform to challenge the APC, in July 2025, the coalition sent initial shivers across the ruling party. But the leading politicians in the coalition became lukewarm, reluctant to transit from their former parties. But that has changed.

Now that former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Nasir El Rufai, Rotimi Amaechi and other bigwigs have formally joined ADC, let them roll out. But they have to conquer that old, inordinate and selfish ambition of everybody wanting to be president, including those who cannot win senatorial elections.

To avoid maximum casualties in 2027, the entire opposition must have commonsense. They’re going to be dealing with President Tinubu, no longer with the 2023 candidate of APC. 2026 is the year to preach commonsense.

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