The camp of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has cautioned opposition parties against fielding a southern presidential candidate to challenge President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the 2027 general election.
In a statement released on Monday, Atiku’s media aide, Olusola Sanni, argued that it would be politically difficult for an opposition candidate from the South to unseat a sitting southern president.
According to the statement, while the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) may choose to retain its current southern presidential arrangement around President Tinubu, opposition parties should focus on political strategy and national coalition-building rather than sentiment or regional considerations.
Sanni maintained that Nigerian political history does not support the possibility of a sitting president being defeated by an opposition challenger from the same geopolitical region.
“The first and most obvious question is this: how does a Southern opposition candidate realistically defeat a sitting Southern president? Nigerian political history offers no precedent for such an outcome,” the statement said.
The Atiku camp further argued that by 2027, the South would have occupied the presidency for about 18 years in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, compared to roughly 10 years for the North, adding that extending southern leadership for another four years would deepen the existing imbalance.
“It becomes difficult to justify calls for equity while further widening an already existing imbalance in the sharing of presidential power,” the statement added.
Sanni also criticised what he described as selective interpretations of the zoning principle, noting that some political actors who supported former President Goodluck Jonathan’s emergence in 2011 are now presenting themselves as defenders of rotational justice.
The statement, however, acknowledged the South-East’s aspiration to produce a Nigerian president, insisting that the region deserves a credible and sustainable pathway to national leadership rather than symbolic political arrangements.
“The South-East deserves a genuine opportunity at national leadership, not token gestures designed around personal ambition,” Sanni stated.
The former Vice President’s camp urged opposition parties to prioritise building a broad national alliance capable of defeating the incumbent administration in 2027.
“Defeating an incumbent government requires realism, strategy, and unity not sentiment or selective memory. The opposition must decide whether its aim is to make a statement or to win power,” the statement concluded.
