By Jude Opara
A chieftain of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Alhaji Shehu Mohammed has described the acceptance of the former presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Sen. Rabiu Kwankwaso to become the running mate to Peter Obi in the 2027 presidential election.
Mohammed who spoke from his base in Kano said the pairing of the two former governors is a master stroke, which he argued will make it easier for the opposition to defeat the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
In a telephone chat with Peoples Daily, Mohammed said the chances of the opposition party has brightened because both Obi and Kwankwaso are seasoned politicians who have their different support bases.
According to him, while Obi still commands a huge followership of his Obidients movement, Kwankwaso is still in firm control of his Kwankwasia group, because the two groups have demonstrated their loyalty by following their principals to everywhere they go.
“I’m very happy that Obi and Kwankwaso have reached an understanding. Remember that both of them couldn’t find this alliance in 2023 and it didn’t work out well for any of them. From our calculations, with about eight million votes both of them gathered, if they had worked together, maybe they could have formed the government.
“Going into the 2027 election, we believe that their coming together will give a different result. It may even be easier, given the fact that the administration of President Bola Tinubu has ran the country aground. The economy is in shambles, Nigerians are now finding it difficult to even eat twice a day. It will be difficult for Tinubu to win, unless they don’t conduct free and fair elections”.
He added that since Obi and Kwankwaso left the African Democratic Congress (ADC) last month, the political equation has taken a different dimension as the leadership of both the ruling APC and the ADC have continued to attack the two former governors.
Analysts have argued that almost every member of the ADC has been talking down and criticising Obi and Kwankwaso for joining the NDC.
“The National Publicity Secretary (NPS) of the ADC, Bolaji Abdulahi recently told an Abuja television station that Obi was never committed to the party. Similarly, another chieftain of the party, Kenneth Okonkwo has even taken his criticisms personal with unwarranted insults on the person of Obi.
“Recently, former Vice President, Atiku who appears to be stocked in a recent statement criticized the opposition parties that have zoned their presidential tickets to the South”.
It could be recalled that Atiku in a statement through one of his media aides on Monday, Olusola Sanni, said zoning the presidential ticket to the South is intellectually hollow and strategically self-destructive.
He said, “One of the loudest narratives currently dominating opposition discourse is the insistence that zoning the presidential ticket to the South is both morally necessary and politically inevitable. This argument, repeated with evangelical fervour by certain political actors, is not only intellectually hollow but strategically self-destructive.
“Politics is not fantasy literature; elections are won through coalition-building, strategic arithmetic, and the ability to fracture an incumbent’s support base—not by recycling emotionally appealing but politically sterile talking points.
“To insist that only a Southerner can challenge Tinubu is, in practical terms, to concede the election before the first ballot is cast. Even more troubling is the intellectual dishonesty embedded in the zoning argument itself”.
Atiku who frontally attacked Obi said the campaign strategy of the former governor of Anambra state is transactional, further accused him of resorting to emotions in his quest to clinch the presidency on 2027.
“Let us be clear: the South East’s aspiration to produce a president is legitimate and deserving of serious national engagement. No geopolitical zone should feel permanently excluded from the Nigerian presidency. A truly national opposition must be able to articulate a credible framework that guarantees long-term inclusion and equitable access to power.
“But what we are witnessing from Peter Obi and some of his supporters is not a principled campaign for justice. It is transactional politics masquerading as moral agitation.
“Zoning, in their hands, has become a bargaining chip—not a constitutional principle, not a democratic doctrine, and certainly not a consistent moral creed.
Even the much-talked-about single-term zoning arrangement reportedly negotiated within certain coalition conversations appears less like a sincere pathway for South East inclusion and more like a bespoke political accommodation designed around one individual’s ambition”.
But Mohammed, a chieftain of the NDC from Kano said the most important thing today is to rescue Nigeria from the “iron grips” of the APC administration, and not necessarily where the next president should come from, whether they are from the South or the North.
Mohammed also claimed that the ticket of Obi/ Kwankwaso was further boosted when the former Kano governor while responding to a question whether he would agree to deputize Obi saying; “Yes, you can be sure. If the party decides that I should be the running mate of any candidate from the South, under the circumstances, I would be happy to work together with him.
“Personally, I cannot remember any better combination, no matter how much time you are given, to find those who can beat us in terms of doing the right thing for this country,” he said.
Kwankwaso was quoted to have further dismissed suggestions that an Obi-Kwankwaso alliance could weaken opposition support in Northern Nigeria, insisting that Nigerians are more concerned about the country’s worsening condition than regional politics.
