Eshioromeh Sebastian and Gabriel Atumeyi
Major opposition parties in Nigeria have commenced formal negotiations aimed at presenting a single presidential candidate for the 2027 general election, as leaders gathered in Abuja on Monday to lay the groundwork for an unprecedented coalition to challenge the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The summit, convened by the G100 group and the Minority Caucus of the House of Representatives at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, brought together representatives of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Allied Peoples Movement (APM), Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), and Social Democratic Party (SDP).
However, the absence of some of the opposition’s most prominent figures — former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the ADC, Peter Obi of the NDC, and Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde of the APM — raised questions about the depth of commitment to the unity project. Present at the gathering were PRP presidential candidate Donald Duke, SDP presidential candidate Adewole Adebayo, and other party leaders and lawmakers.
Opening the summit, G100 leader and former APC National Vice Chairman, Mallam Salihu Mohammed Lukman, argued that opposition fragmentation had repeatedly handed victory to the ruling party, citing the arithmetic of the 2023 presidential election.
“The winner took just under nine million votes,” Lukman said. “One opposition candidate took close to seven million. Another took just over six million. Thirteen million votes on one side of the argument, under nine million on the other. And the side with fewer votes formed the government, lawfully, constitutionally and entirely predictably.”
He added: “Nobody stole thirteen million votes. We divided them ourselves, in public, and we did it knowing exactly what the consequence would be.”
Lukman stressed that the summit was not asking any party to dissolve its identity or any candidate to withdraw immediately, but rather to authorise a framework for cooperation. “Rules before outcomes. Table before seats,” he told the gathering, arguing that what had been missing from previous opposition efforts was “not analysis” but “a table.”
Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Frederick Agbedi, who also addressed the gathering, urged opposition leaders to set aside personal ambitions. “Nigeria is in pain,” Agbedi declared. “Nigeria is suffering. If we are united, what the APC did in 2015, we can repeat it.”
PRP National Chairman, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, endorsed the initiative and cautioned against despair in the face of legal challenges facing some opposition figures. “No party alone can defeat APC,” Baba-Ahmed stated. “We are all in court. There are efforts to cripple us, to destroy us, but we will not be destroyed because we represent the Nigerian people. Our back is against the wall, but we will fight back.”
ADC National Vice Chairman, Usani Usani, expressed confidence that the coalition was workable but raised a critical question about whether failure to produce a single presidential candidate would necessarily amount to failure of the alliance. “Assuming we fail to produce a single presidential candidate, have we failed?” Usani asked, describing the initiative as “now or never.”
APM National Chairman, Yusuf Mamman Dankadai, described the moment as historic and pledged his party’s full commitment. “We will stand by anything to do with Project Nigeria,” Dankadai said.
The parties agreed to a four-week timeline for working groups to produce documents on a National Covenant for Democratic Renewal, a Single-Term Transition Charter, a National Reform Programme, a Framework for Opposition Unity, and a Roadmap to a Common Presidential Candidate. Proposals include a “Government of National Competence” based on a single, enforceable four-year transition term.
Lukman emphasised that any political agreement must be binding. “We want to underline the word ‘enforceable,'” he said. “This gathering does not need more sincerity. Nigerian politics has never suffered from a shortage of sincere promises. What it has suffered from is promises that nobody could enforce when the person who made them changed his or her mind. It must be written, it must be witnessed, and it must have consequences.”
He warned that unity would demand sacrifice. “Someone in this hall will have to accept an outcome he or she did not want,” Lukman said. “That is what unity is. It is not a communiqué. It is somebody’s disappointment, borne well.”
The success of the coalition-building effort remains uncertain, with the parties acknowledging in a communiqué that the process hinges on how far each party is prepared to go in the cooperation, what its hardlines are, and whether it will support a framework for opposition cooperation through a process it regards as fair.
The communiqué also noted that the Central Leadership Committee, comprising the leadership of all participating political parties, will oversee the negotiation process, while the G100 will serve as facilitators. The parties further agreed that all decisions reached would be binding on all signatories to the final agreement.
The next meeting of the working groups has been scheduled to take place within the next two weeks, with a view to presenting their recommendations before the end of the four-week timeline. Observers have noted that previous attempts at opposition unity have collapsed over the inability of parties to agree on a single candidate, and it remains to be seen whether this latest effort will overcome that historic hurdle.
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