Opposition parties have begun fresh negotiations on the possibility of fielding a common presidential candidate against President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress in the 2027 election.
The talks commenced on Monday at the Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja during a summit organised by the G-100 political pressure group.
Six opposition parties participated in the meeting: the African Democratic Congress, Allied Peoples Movement, Nigeria Democratic Congress, Peoples Democratic Party, Peoples Redemption Party and Social Democratic Party.
However, two of the leading opposition presidential contenders, Atiku Abubakar of the ADC and Peter Obi of the NDC, were absent from the summit.
Their absence was not officially explained at the meeting, although Atiku’s media aide, Phrank Shaibu, said the former vice-president remained committed to the opposition unity project.
“His Excellency’s absence was unavoidable and should not be mischievously interpreted as a boycott or lack of commitment to opposition unity,” Shaibu said.
He added that Atiku remained committed to building “a broad, disciplined and united opposition” capable of defeating the Tinubu administration in 2027.
A source familiar with the discussions said the timing of the negotiations could present a major challenge because most of the participating parties had already produced their presidential candidates.
“While the goal of the G-100 is laudable, Atiku is perhaps thinking that they started quite late,” the source said, adding that the former vice-president supported legitimate efforts to defeat the APC but would have to consider how existing presidential ambitions would be reconciled.
The source also linked Obi’s absence to ongoing political calculations involving a possible alliance between the former Anambra governor and former Kano State governor Rabiu Kwankwaso.
Meanwhile, the spokesman of the House of Representatives minority caucus, Afam Ogene, said the absence of Atiku and Obi should not be viewed as opposition to the initiative.
“It’s just the laying of structures, so the party chairmen and officials largely handled that,” he said.
Among those who attended the summit were PRP presidential candidate Donald Duke, SDP candidate Adewale Adebayo, Democratic Leadership Alliance candidate Moses Olusoji and APM vice-presidential candidate Lawan Daura.
Duke, a former Cross River State governor, pledged to support whatever candidate eventually emerges from the negotiations.
“We will support any political party that emerges in 2027. Whatever decision is arrived at today, I will not walk away but will strive all along because that’s what the people want to see,” he said.
The G-100 convener, Salihu Lukman, said opposition parties must learn from the 2023 election, when votes that could have strengthened the opposition were divided among several candidates.
Lukman argued that opposition parties collectively secured about 13 million votes in the election, compared with fewer than nine million votes garnered by Tinubu, but failed to convert the combined opposition vote into victory because of fragmentation.
“Nobody stole 13m votes. We divided them ourselves, in public, and we did it knowing exactly what the consequence would be,” he said.
He cited the 2015 opposition alliance that produced the APC as an example of how political parties could overcome competing interests through an agreed process.
“What they had was not affection. What they had was sequence. They agreed on the rules before they knew the outcome,” Lukman said.
The summit subsequently adopted a framework for structured negotiations, including the establishment of a Central Leadership Committee, Publicity and Communication Committee and Legal Committee.
Five working groups were also approved to develop proposals on a National Covenant for Democratic Renewal, Single-Term Transition Charter, National Reform Programme, Framework for Opposition Unity and a roadmap for producing a common presidential candidate.
The committees are expected to submit their reports within four weeks, after which the parties will reconvene to consider their recommendations.
Lukman said the initiative was not intended to immediately force any party to dissolve or any presidential candidate to withdraw.
“It is not asking any party to dissolve. It is not asking any party to disappear into another party. It is not asking any candidate to stand down this morning,” he said.
Instead, he said, the process was designed to create a mechanism for resolving competing interests before a final decision is reached on the opposition’s presidential ticket.
The summit also proposed a four-year transition arrangement under a planned Single-Term Transition Charter, alongside what the G-100 described as a “Government of National Competence” and a four-year National Reset Programme.
The communiqué did not provide details on the proposed arrangement or indicate whether its implementation would require constitutional amendments.
The group also called for greater transparency and accountability in public office, including the lawful disclosure by the United States Government of non-exempt official records concerning Tinubu that are considered to be of legitimate public interest.
Lukman acknowledged that the search for a consensus candidate would require some politicians to make sacrifices.
“There is no version of this that costs nobody anything. Someone in this hall will have to accept an outcome he/she did not want. That is what unity is. It is not a communiqué. It is somebody’s disappointment, borne well,” he said.
He said the ultimate objective was to give Nigerians a credible alternative to the ruling party in 2027.
“Our only interest is the one stated in the Doctrine we published in August, which is that a democracy is sustained not merely by holding elections, but by the credible possibility of an alternative government,” Lukman said.
The negotiations now face the challenge of persuading the major opposition figures and their parties to subordinate individual presidential ambitions to a transparent process for selecting a single candidate ahead of the 2027 poll.
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