The emerging coalition against Tinubu/APC

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By Reuben Abati

It comes as no surprise that the headlines have been dominated in part by the proposed formation of a mega coalition of opposition parties and politicians planning to unseat President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and defeat the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the next general elections in 2027. The whistle was blown last week, and since then there have been more revelations about how most of the would-be members of that coalition are aggrieved members of Tinubu’s own political camp – those who felt left out of the sharing of the spoils of victory after the 2023 elections, members of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), originally, a building bloc of the APC, as well as opposition party members. It is still early in the day to describe the exact shape and character of this proposed coalition in general. What is known for now, is that the emerging group is seeking accommodation in the Social Democratic Party (SDP), possibly a take-over of the party completely, and perhaps, an eventual creation of a new platform as was the case with the emergence of the APC in 2013.

What is also known is that Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, a former two-time Governor of Kaduna State, former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, and one of the original 37 persons that founded the APC, is the arrow-head of the latest political development, even if there are others in the background who are yet to take public ownership of their conspiracy. It is to El-Rufai’s credit that he has by his bold action changed the course of Nigeria’s political narrative ahead of 2027. He has ignited the fire of speculations and provided a meeting ground for all hidden and open anti-Tinubu conspirators. It looks like a scene out of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar as the plot thickens against the ruler in Aso Rock. More than anything else, El-Rufai has reaffirmed his persona as a man who has fire and salt in his mouth to be deployed as it suits him. With the fire in his mouth, he has done considerable damage already to the reputation of the Tinubu administration. He has also de-marketed the APC. In an interview in the Leadership newspaper, three years ago, Governor Nasir El-Rufai, as he then was, was quoted as saying: “I’ll remain in APC till I die, the moment I leave APC, then I have quit politics altogether.”  Now, he no longer wants to die in the APC nor is he retiring from politics. Instead, he has left the party.  Nigerian politicians and the promises they make!

It is the same APC that El-Rufai promised to serve till death do them part that he has now dismissed as a “useless party.” He has accused the Tinubu administration of having no clue about how to run the country and its economic reforms as useless too. We have heard from El-Rufai also that most of Tinubu’s appointees lack merit and ability, and do not deserve the positions that they have been given.  He has also not minced words in saying that some of the Ministers bought their positions in the Cabinet. That certainly is a serious allegation: who is doing buying and selling with Ministerial appointments? How much was paid? To whom? By who? Where is the money kept? El-Rufai cannot make such a weighty allegation and leave it at the level of innuendo. His statement is defamatory per se. The onus is on him to provide evidence. For example, he had made the additional claim that the grand, anti-Tinubu/APC coalition that he is leading has the blessing of President Muhammadu Buhari: “I consulted Buhari on Friday; I told him my reasons for leaving the APC and the responses of other people I consulted. Buhari responded that he is now a Statesman, but he knows my worries and prayed for me.” It didn’t take too long before President Buhari issued a statement to restate his loyalty to the APC and his commitment to continue to popularize the party that gave him an opportunity to be President of Nigeria for two terms (2015 – 2023). There is a touch of irony to it all, and perhaps poetic justice. A month ago, February 16, 2025, President Tinubu had publicly congratulated Mallam Nasir El-Rufai on the occasion of his 65th birthday, describing him as an “administrator, scholar, politician…highly regarded for his resourcefulness and brilliance…his endeavours for democracy; his meritorious service to the nation, and mentorship of the younger generation”. One month later, El-Rufai told the BBC Hausa Service: “We knew about Tinubu’s Chicago issues and still supported him; yet he failed Nigeria”. He was speaking to the Hausa listeners of the BBC, and by extension the entire North and Nigeria. President Tinubu got more than five million of his over eight million votes in the 2023 Presidential election from Northern Nigeria. Apparently, El-Rufai and his co-conspirators are determined to discredit him and expose whatever they know, or at best sow the seeds of doubt in the Tinubu Presidency. By mentioning Buhari’s name, he sought to incite the former President’s power base against Tinubu.

The main reaction from the Tinubu camp and the APC has been to wave off the threat as inconsequential “inordinate ambition”, “political gyration” that should not disturb anybody, “a mistake”. I do not consider these responses robust and convincing enough. El-Rufai has knocked the very foundations of the party and maligned the President and the best that the APC and Tinubu’s spokespersons can come up with are dismissive one-liners? Not good enough. Not good enough. It would be risky to underestimate or downplay the El-Rufai threat. The Tinubu Presidency should not make the mistake that the Jonathan Presidency made in 2013/2014. When disgruntled politicians started gathering to talk about forming a formidable opposition to the incumbent administration at the time, there were persons in the corridors who boasted that they were making a mistake. I was in the corridors of power then, and I heard some commentators saying that the people in the APC were well-known customers (“customer daa da ni”), and that they would be given what would calm them down. In fact, some members of that coalition at the time even recommended persons to be appointed to the Board of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and they were given appointments. By the time, the ruling PDP and the Jonathan camp realized what was going on, the conspirators within and without had perfected their art of treachery. I am aware that there are some people who are of the firm view that Tinubu is not Jonathan or that 2027 is not 2015, whatever they mean by that, but it is precisely that level of over-confidence and arrogance that could give teeth to the anti-Tinubu plotters.

It is wiser not to ever underestimate the opposition, conspirators or fifth columnists. Goliath underestimated David. Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher, says: There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent.” George S. Patton, United States Army General, advises, in addition that: “You shouldn’t underestimate an enemy, but it is just as fatal to overestimate him”. The latter part of General Patton’s statement should be carefully underlined and it is possible to extrapolate that the anti-Tinubu coalition faces by its very creation, a number of hurdles. I shall attempt to identify a few.

One, the coalition is bound to be torn apart by the ambition of some of the major partners on the question of which part of the country should their Presidential candidate come from. It stands to reason that some key members of the coalition, from the Northern part of Nigeria would expect to be appointed the flagbearer, which however is likely to be unpopular with the conspirators from the South. The politics of region, geography, religion, and ethnicity is one of the major fault lines in Nigerian democracy. It is never a question of merit but always about where you come from and the type of religion you belong to. This was a major issue in 2010, after the death in office of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, also in 2011, and again in both 2015 and 2023, as it would be most certainly in 2027, and as it has been since the First Republic. After eight years of the Buhari/Northern Presidency, the Southern partners in the emerging coalition would naturally insist that to replace Tinubu who would have spent four years, the remaining four years must naturally, mutatis mutandis, go to a Presidential candidate of Southern extraction.

Two, in determining the identity of that Presidential candidate of Southern extraction, the ethnic fight would also be more intense at the micro-Southern level. Igbo members of the coalition would of course insist that the strongest message that the coalition can convey is to zone the Presidency specifically to the South East, to allay the fears of Igbos about being marginalized out of the highest office in the land. South-South politicians are also likely to play the politics of entitlement. Already, some politicians from that region are pushing the view that if any party wants an alternative to President Tinubu from the South, the best bet would be to allow President Jonathan to return for a second term in office, a clear assurance that after four years of another Jonathan Presidency, power would simply rotate back to the North. Nobody should rule out the interest of South West politicians either. Some of the names that have been mentioned in connection with the emerging coalition, even if they have not personally confirmed their involvement, are also persons who would not hesitate to throw their hats into the ring, should the opportunity present itself. One or two of the names that have been mentioned would most likely insist that the candidate must not be any of Tinubu’s Lagos boys, whether that person has fallen out of favour with Asiwaju or not. Even among those former Tinubu allies who may be tempted to betray him openly, there is a deep-seated resentment of those they regard as Tinubu’s Lagos boys who have been majorly the ones who have benefitted from his administration so far. The foreseeable in-fighting and intrigues within the new coalition would be the biggest threat that it faces.

Three, there will be a problem with the chosen SDP platform. Mr. Adewole Adebayo, the Presidential candidate of the party in the 2023 Presidential election has stated categorically during an interview on The Morning Show (TMS) of Arise News that he will most certainly be the Presidential candidate of the party in 2027.  When reminded of the timbre and calibre of some of the names that have been mentioned as moving into the SDP, he retorted that the SDP is “my party” and that no new person joining the party can come and take his party away from him! As it is, except Adebayo changes his mind through negotiations, and guarantees, the SDP may not promise any safe landing. This is meant to be a grouping of the opposition, but the Labour Party, the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have declared that their own platforms should be the destination, rallying spot for opposition politics.

Four, is history repeating itself? When the now divided bedfellows formed the All Progressives Congress in 2013, it was more or less a special purpose vehicle, and no more than that, to take power back to the North, defeat the PDP, and unseat President Goodluck Jonathan. At the time, there was very little talk about what the APC coalition wanted to do for the Nigerian people. It was all about personal ambitions and less about good governance and promoting the common good.

As it were, however, politics as a wise man once told me is a question of strategy. In Nigeria, the man with the better strategy wins and that means winning by all and any means possible, while the aggrieved party is advised to go to court! Nigerian courts are also not beyond strategy or technicalities. Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe, former Minister of Works, in an interview on TMS/Arise News recently was quite effusive in describing President Tinubu as “a master of the game.” The current onslaught by his political adversaries may yet be the biggest challenge to his political craftsmanship. The anti-Tinubu assailants do not hide the fact that they want to teach him just one lesson: that Nigeria is not Lagos, it is a much bigger deal, with peculiar complexities. It would be interesting to see how the strategies play out and who wins or loses in the end.

What I find amusing is a story in The Guardian newspaper of March 17, 2025 titled: “2027: Wike, others affirm support for Tinubu’s second term amid opposition.” Despite the fact that President Tinubu has publicly praised and endorsed Nyesom Wike, the FCT Minister, and would seem to have taken his side in the “One Day, One Trouble” debacle in Rivers State, I do not consider Wike the right and proper person to lead Tinubu’s defence in the public arena. Wike’s belligerent politics should be seen as a costly embarrassment to President Tinubu. He has every right to affirm his loyalty to the President but he does not have what it takes to “help” him against those who want him out of power. The politics that he plays in Rivers State is precisely one of the reasons the opposition is against Tinubu. They accuse him of a Napoleonic approach to power, and so, they are organizing to confront him with their War of The Coalition. The Bourbons are knocking on Tinubu’s doors. Nyesom Wike who carries on as if he is doing Tinubu’s bidding in Rivers State, imposing himself as a godfather, issuing threats and having his way, one man proving to be more important than the entire State, holding the people to ransom is the kind of impunity that Nasir El-Rufai deplores.  It is all the more scandalous as Wike is a mercenary in the APC, a PDP implant behaving like a co-President in an APC government. Wike even organized a media chat with a crew larger than that of President Tinubu! He has now instructed the 27 pro-Wike lawmakers to serve a notice of impeachment on Governor Simi Fubara, barely a week after he boasted that the impeachment of a Governor does not amount to a criminal offence.

But the worse chink in his armour is how his obstruction of the democratic process could have grave implications for Nigerian democracy. President Tinubu is advised to remember the blow-out in the Western region during the First Republic. The setting then is similar to the Rivers situation today: the conflict of egos, political gladiators, and the reign of impunity. When the Western region eventually exploded, what became known as the “Wild, Wild West”, the fire that was generated led to cracks across the entire Nigerian estate. History repeats itself tragically, and farcically, for those who refuse to learn from it.