The activists who planned the recent #EndBadGovernance protest in Nigeria could not have expected its political fallouts, including the potential to trigger realignments in the 2027 presidential election.
By Chudi Okoye
Even before the recent #EndBadGovernance protest in Nigeria had commenced, its pre-announcement by planners prompted a preemptive attack by fringe elements in the Southwest region and apologists of the current Nigerian administration who tried to pin the proposed protest on the Igbos of the Southeast. Igbo abstention from the protest and the manner of the protest’s eventual execution, with its most truculent expression (involving deaths, property damage, looting and stochastic violence) occurring in parts of the impoverished North, appear to have unleashed a different dynamic: a potential fracturing of the political alignment that ushered in the present All Progressives Congress (APC) administration headed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
In a previous essay on this issue, I described how ethnic discourse had unfortunately – but characteristically for Nigeria – been injected into a protest that was conceived essentially as a revolt of the hungered poor. What had the makings of class struggle regrettably suffered an atavistic regression – a reversion to ethnic mean, to borrow concepts from psychiatry and statistics.
My initial article had focused on a particular aspect of the protest discourse: a projection of mischievous intent onto the Igbos of the Southeast, who were said to be behind the protest because they were still stewing over the loss of the election by one of their own, Peter Obi of the Labour Party. The Igbos were then given an ultimatum – by faceless Yoruba firebrands – to remove themselves from Lagos and other parts of the Southwest. In the wake of the protest, however, a different narrative is emerging: a narrative surreptitiously pushed by administration hunchos and keenly cultivated by some members of the Southwest media intelligentsia, retrojecting a northern geopolitical motive into the protest. According to this new theory, the hunger protest erupted, not necessarily because Nigerians were in any worse condition than the miseries suffered in other lands, but because northern elites, like fish out of water, have become restless being out of power.
When fish is out of water, its gills collapse, it suffers stress and potential brain damage, and it eventually dies if deoxygenation is prolonged. I am metaphorizing, but this is essentially what’s presumed in parts of the Nigerian media to be happening to the temporarily displaced northern power elites. I have read deeply argued articles suggesting that the protest was orchestrated by the ‘North’, and that it was an early warning signal that an impatient North is angling to retake power by 2027. It is also suggested that the protest and the North’s impatience mean its alliance with Tinubu, which led to the ascendance of Muhammadu Buhari and his succession by Tinubu, is now all but dead.
This could be alarmist. But if it is even close to being realistic, it completely changes the outlook for the 2027 presidential election.
Successful Alliance
Nigerian politics is notoriously transactional, with its practitioners – for the most part lacking ideological conviction or simply inured by ideological consensus – in continuously shifting alliances. So it was with the political alliance that brought the incumbent president, Tinubu, as well as his predecessor, Buhari, to power.
Buhari, an unsmiling former military dictator chucked out by his colleagues after only 20 months in power, had transformed himself into a barely relatable democrat in pursuit of the Nigerian presidency under civilian dispensation. But he was unsuccessful in all his initial efforts. In 2003, he contested under the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) but was defeated by Olusegun Obasanjo, another ex-military henchman seeking re-election under the banner of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). In 2007, Buhari was trounced by Obasanjo’s successor, Umaru Yar’Adua. In 2011, this time fighting under the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Buhari was defeated by Goodluck Jonathan.
Having been rejected three times by the Nigerian electorate, a dejected Buhari was reportedly ready to pack it in, but for a renowned political strategist from Lagos, Bola Tinubu, who interjected in his depression and persuaded him on a new tack. In 2013, in order to take on then incumbent PDP, Tinubu mobilized various political formations – including his own Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a breakaway faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and a faction of PDP (nPDP) – to form the APC. The new party would win power in the 2015 election, toppling PDP’s 16-year incumbency. Buhari also won re-election in 2019, and was succeeded by Tinubu himself in 2023.
Despite its spectacular rise to power, the APC’s nine-year reign in Nigeria has been an unmitigated disaster, even if one factors in global events that occurred during its rule, like the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ukraine-Russia war and the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza which is threatening a wider Middle East conflagration. The APC’s governance failure is reflected in the decline of all economic and social indices under the party’s watch, marked the most by the collapse of the country’s currency; a severe contraction of the economy, with the GDP just about halved to $252.7 billion in 2024 from its peak when the party took power; the widespread insecurity in the land; decay and the grimification of social life; and, latterly, the embarrassing hunger protest which revealed Nigeria to the world as a poor country, despite its swagger. All of these resulted in the party’s shrunken governing mandate, seen in its reduced share of presidential election votes from 53.9% in 2015 and 55.6% in 2019 to 36.6% in 2023.
The APC’s poor record of governance, in addition to geopolitical power struggle and conflicting personal ambitions within the party, may be at the root of its seemingly troubled alliance.
2027 and an Unraveling Alliance
If indeed the APC alliance is becoming fractured, if the North is truly becoming restless as suggested, it might not be unconnected with the fact that Bola Tinubu has governed with a heavy Yoruba accent. He has been exceedingly parochial (no less, probably more so, than Buhari before him), and appears to be on a rapid trajectory to consolidate Oduduwa hegemony in Nigeria. It is telling that a Tinubu that was backed in the 2022 APC primary by northern governors, who helped secure his nomination reportedly against Buhari’s wish, is now – again supposedly – facing the unsteady support of the North. If that is the case, it means a political realignment might be being considered by Tinubu strategists for his re-election in 2027.
To understand the point here, let us look at how Tinubu won the election of 2023, as reflected in the official results (see chart above). Tinubu won the election with a plurality of 36.6%, the lowest winning score of any president in the 4th Republic, and the second lowest throughout Nigeria’s presidential history. It was a narrow victory won largely because of his alliance with the North.
My analysis of the 2023 results shows that the North boasted 61% of the votes, compared with the South’s 39%. Tinubu won 38% of the total northern vote, beating his nearest competitor in the region, Atiku, by two percentage points. Tinubu’s win in the North was made possible by a strong performance in the Northwest, which made up 28% of the total national vote and where he garnered 40%, the highest score. He also carried the North Central, which represented 19% of the national vote and gave him 39%. He was outperformed by Atiku in the Northeast where his running-mate, Kashim Shettima, hailed from, his 35% to Atiku’s 51%; but then, that geopolitical zone constituted only 14% of the national vote.
The importance of the North to Tinubu’s victory is further revealed if we consider his performance in the South. As already indicated, the South boasted only two out of five voters, significantly trailing the North; even so, Tinubu was outperformed in the South by Peter Obi. Tinubu secured 34% of the overall southern vote, driven by the 54% he obtained in the Southwest (which made up 18% of the national vote), and the 28% he won in the South South zone (which made up 12% of the national vote). But he was considerably outperformed in the South by Obi who won the region with a sizeable plurality of 43%.
Tinubu was soundly beaten by Obi in two southern geopolitical zones: in the Southeast where Obi scored a forbidding 88%, and in the South South which Obi carried with 42%. Even in Tinubu’s native Southwest zone, which he carried with a slight majority, he was given a run for his money by Atiku (who won 22% of the votes in the zone), and by Obi (who got 20%).
It is fair to say therefore that the North was crucial to Tinubu’s victory, such as it was, in the 2023 election. It is significant therefore if it appears now that this political alliance may be going through some stress. It has to be assumed that the sabre-rattling regime apologists, especially those in the Lagos-Ibadan media axis openly mocking Tinubu’s northern allies, must be aware of the fundamentals of the last election.
If so, it means that a different playbook might be in consideration for the 2027 presidential election. Perhaps an attempt at further inroads into the two regions where APC had decent showings in 2023 (Northeast and South South), to mitigate any erosion in the North Central and Northwest. This calculation perhaps explains the stupendous amount (₦20 billion) spent on renovating the residence of the vice-president, Shettima, who will be expected to exploit the power of incumbency to erode Atiku’s victory in that zone in 2023. It might also explain the indulgence of Nyesom Wike (“the Mouth from the South,” as I call him), the talkative and generally obstreperous character installed as minister of the Federal Capital Territory. He’s there to usurp Peter Obi in 2027 and deliver a clear APC majority in the South South – assuming he does not implode before then!
Assuming my speculations are correct, what should the other leading candidates do?
I have written several articles, before and after the 2023 election, arguing that Atiku owes a duty to the Southeast to repay the zone’s loyalty to the PDP since 1999, by facilitating the emergence of a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction, which is necessary for Nigeria’s unity. I berated him before the election for undermining the prospect of this; I have urged him, after the election, to do the right thing; and I have said that if he does not, Obi must do what is necessary to send Atiku, who’ll be 80 by the next election, into political retirement.
As it is, reading the tea leaves – or his “body language,” to borrow a vernacular of Nigerian politics – there’s a non-zero probability that Atiku might run again in 2027. Let me be clear: I am not predicting it. It’s possible that Atiku might be influenced by what happens in this November’s US presidential election. If America elects Kamala Harris, it might discourage Atiku, sensing a swing against gerontocracy, to seek the Nigerian presidency. If, however, America elects 78-year old Donald Trump, Atiku might be emboldened.
Atiku might also be encouraged if he thinks the Tinubu/North alliance might fracture. In that case, he’ll want to exploit northern disaffection and improve on the 36% of the region’s vote he secured in 2023, whilst pushing for further inroads in the South South, and defending his win in the Southwest.
Of the three leading candidates from 2023, Peter Obi has the greatest burden, I think. Whereas Tinubu has achieved for the Southwest what the great Awo could not, and whereas Atiku’s skin in the game is primarily personal, Obi has the burden of winning for Nigeria. Equilibrium in Nigeria’s tripodal politics, to say nothing of equity, requires Igbo presidential accession. I have written repeatedly that this has to be achieved in 2027. Of the current crop of the Southeast’s political leaders, Obi is the readiest, given the coalition he has built. If the region misses this window, it won’t be until 2039 that it might have another opportunity. But by then, the current crop of Igbo political elites will be quite aged; and I am not sure yet about the clout of the next generation.
Obi performed creditably in the 2023 presidential election. While he wasn’t adjudged the winner of the election, he did achieve a result that no other third-party had attained in Nigeria’s presidential history. For the 2027 election (assuming he’s running!) he’ll need to defend his impressive performance in the South, and re-strategize to improve on the 14% he won in the North. For this, he’ll need a deeper incursion into the northern power circles. I’m afraid this means that although Obi has built a progressive coalition, he’ll need a running-mate with cachet within the northern establishment. Obama did it in 2008, by picking Joe Biden as running-mate, to persuade America to vote for a Black man as president. Obi should think carefully about his running-mate for 2027: someone who’ll not put off his young and ebullient base, but who can persuade the northern powerbrokers to trust him.
The 2027 presidential election promises a scintillating contest: between a depleted incumbent who will seek re-election for personal and other parochial reasons, but who seems to be bleeding support; an aged juggernaut who might run one last time to achieve a burning personal ambition; and an effacing populist with the burden of history on his shoulders.
Who comes out victorious will say as much about the candidates as it does about Nigeria itself.
