As Nigeria’s opposition parties turn against themselves

“Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand“—Matthew 12:25

Despite being unable to form a strong coalition and present one presidential candidate who can wrestle power from the All Progressives Congress in 2027 presidential election, the two main opposition parties – African Democratic Congress and Nigeria Democratic Congress – have continued to fight each other, brightening the chances of the ruling APC, Ejiofor Alike reports 

With the 2026 general election fast approaching, the main opposition  political parties have continued to demonstrate a lack of capacity to unite and present one presidential candidate to defeat the incumbent in 2027.

In African democracy, defeating a sitting president is not a feat that can be achieved by fragmented and fractured opposition parties.

 For the All Progressives Congress (APC) to defeat former President Goodluck Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2015, the leaders of the opposition parties and their presidential candidates jettisoned their political ambitions, and collapsed their structures into one umbrella, the APC.  

However, due to selfish ambitions, the current presidential candidates are unwilling to sacrifice their ambitions for a common cause.

Despite not forming the kind of coalition that birthed the APC, the current opposition parties dissipate energy fighting themselves instead of uniting against the APC.

The repeated claims that opposition parties have made significant progress towards producing a consensus presidential candidate to challenge President Bola Tinubu and the APC in 2027, have remained a mirage.

Evidence on ground suggests increasing hostility among the opposition parties against themselves.

Analysts believe that the lack of unity among the opposition parties has brightened APC’s chances of victory in the 2027 presidential election.

According to political analysts, the same minority votes of about 36 per cent that gave the ruling APC victory in 2023 presidential election will likely hand over victory to the ruling party in 2027.

In 2023, the opposition parties split the majority votes of about 64 per cent among themselves, depriving one another the number of votes that could have enabled the opposition to unseat the APC.

Elementary mathematics shows that if the opposition parties had merged to form one political party, and scored about 64 per cent votes shared by all the opposition parties in the 2023 presidential election, the ruling APC would have been defeated resoundingly.

The 2023 scenario is playing out ahead of 2027 as the presidential candidates of the opposition parties have not shown any genuine sincerity to step down from the race and support one candidate.

Instead of uniting to unseat APC, the opposition parties are fighting themselves so that when the APC emerges victorious, they will allege rigging and resort to frivolous litigation.

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