Opposition Parties Unite Against Tinubu Ahead of 2027

(President Bola Tinubu. Photo Credit; Arise News)

Nigeria's opposition political parties have agreed to work together to try to defeat President Bola Tinubu in 2027, mimicking the successful alliance they used in 2015 to oust then-President Goodluck Jonathan.

Six parties the African Democratic Congress, Nigeria Democratic Congress, Peoples Redemption Party, two factions of the Peoples Democratic Party, and the Social Democratic Party met at a summit in Abuja on Monday.

They said the meeting was the first step toward building a united front for next year's election.

The convener explained the lesson from 2015: opposition parties sat down, negotiated, wrote agreements and settled how their candidate would emerge before they even knew who that candidate was.

That discipline worked.

A sitting president lost for the first time in Nigeria's history.

Then 2023 happened.

Opposition votes got split. One candidate got 13 million votes spread across three contenders.

The side with fewer votes won because the opposition defeated itself through division.

The convener said this was not conspiracy or cheating it was arithmetic.

Thirteen million votes on one side, nine million on the other, and the side with fewer votes formed the government.

He pointed to Kenya in 2002 and Malaysia in 2018, where entrenched ruling parties fell when opposition forces finally united.

The lesson is simple: opposition doesn't win by being more righteous. It wins by being one.

At Monday's meeting, no party was asked to dissolve or disappear into another.

No candidate was asked to step down.

Instead, the parties agreed to build a framework first, then negotiate around it.

They established three committees leadership, communications and legal and created five working groups tasked with producing specific documents within four weeks.

These include a national covenant, a transition charter and a roadmap to finding a common presidential candidate.