By Mary Onyia
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) is choosing its presidential candidate for the 2027 general election through direct primaries conducted simultaneously across its 8,089 electoral wards nationwide, a bold democratic exercise involving three presidential aspirants: former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi, and economist Mohammed Hayatu-Deen. The resort to an election became necessary after all three men refused to step down for each other, making a consensus impossible.
Early results paint a divided picture with a clear northern tilt. Atiku swept Yobe State with 44,841 votes, crushing Amaechi’s 300 and Hayatu-Deen’s 365. However, in the South, a faction in Ebonyi State returned Amaechi as winner with 6,050 votes against Atiku’s 1,210, signalling that southern delegates are firmly in Amaechi’s corner. All indications point to Atiku emerging as the overall winner, powered by a dominant showing across the more populous northern states.
Should Atiku clinch the ticket, it will deepen an already fractured opposition landscape. Most leading opposition parties, including the ADC, PDP, and SDP, are producing multiple or factional candidates, while the ADC itself faces internal disagreements, with a rival group announcing an entirely different consensus candidate. Atiku’s supporters argue that public frustration with Tinubu’s administration and strong northern bloc votes keep him as the principal contender, but critics warn that without a united front, his northern dominance alone cannot guarantee victory.
The emergence of multiple southern presidential candidates across various parties further complicates the 2027 equation. Peter Obi, now with the NDC, retains an emotionally intense, digitally active support base that remains deeply distrustful of traditional political structures. Analysts note that every vote Obi pulls in Lagos, Ogun, Anambra, Enugu, Rivers, and the South-South is a vote taken directly from Tinubu’s expected basket, potentially weakening the incumbent in his own southwestern stronghold. But a crowded southern field could equally scatter the anti-Tinubu vote into irrelevance.
The real danger for the opposition is history repeating itself. In 2023, Tinubu won with roughly 37 per cent of total votes, while Atiku, Obi, and Kwankwaso combined received significantly more, yet lost because Nigeria’s electoral system rewards the candidate with the strongest national structure, not the largest combined opposition vote. If the opposition enters 2027 still divided between a northern Atiku and multiple southern candidates, Tinubu need not be unbeatable, the opposition simply needs to keep obliging him with the same fatal gift of disunity.