Tinubu’s re-election is a done deal if coalition fails - Shehu Sani

 

Senator Shehu Sani, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has projected a landslide victory for President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 general elections if the opposition fails to unite under a coalition. Speaking to journalists in Abuja on Thursday, May 8, Sani attributed his prediction to the current internal divisions plaguing the opposition parties and the wave of defections to the ruling APC.

 

“There is no way you can evict a ruling party without a coalition. It’s only on that basis that the opposition political parties can sacrifice their own individual and narrow political interests and ambition for the general good of democracy in the country,” said Sani, a former senator who represented Kaduna Central in the 9th Senate and a known civil society activist.

Sani noted that key opposition parties, including the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party, and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), have so far shown no willingness to collaborate.

“So far, the SDP said they are not interested in coalition. The PDP said they are not interested in coalition, and the Labor Party seems to be flying alone, and the NNPP says they are not interested in coalition. And if the opposition parties will go to the battle without an alliance, merger or any form of coalition, there is no doubt about it, that APC will have a landslide victory in the 2027 election,” he stated.

 

He emphasized that a unified opposition could change the dynamics of the election significantly. “But if they come together, they will win many seats and will make a very strong impact in the political realm. They lost the 2023 election because of lack of unity, and they are likely to lose this election if they refuse to come together. If the opposition parties refuse to come together and form an alliance or coalition, it is a done deal for us (APC).”

 

Sani further highlighted the ideological vacuum in Nigeria’s political party system, which he said has made defections commonplace and consequence-free.

“Parties are simply vehicles for people to realize their own political ambitions. If you look at all the manifestos of the party, they all look alike. So, anybody can move from any party to another party without losing anything. And the only thing is that the party differs from each other by their names and not by their own ideology or philosophy,” he said.

He argued that it is not the responsibility of the ruling party to prevent defections from opposition parties, adding that it is the opposition's job to maintain internal stability and loyalty. “If a party is shut down against you, there’s no way you can continue to function in that party. So, it is not the problem of Asiwaju to protect opposition party and to make sure that people don’t migrate away from them, it is the opposition party themselves that need to convince and protect their members from moving to other political parties.”

 

Senator Sani predicted more defections to the APC due to unresolved crises within the opposition, especially the PDP. “A one-party state is a state where you have a law that prescribes one party, but this is a multi party democracy, and most of the reasons why people are living in the opposition party, is not pull back factors, but push factors. They have been pushed away because of internal crisis, the internal crisis in the PDP, and their inability to resolve it led to the situation where we are today, because this is a party that has about two national secretaries,” he explained.

 

He pointed to the ambiguous Supreme Court ruling on the PDP’s leadership tussle as a deterrent to political confidence. “The Supreme Court gave judgment, but that judgment was neither here nor there. So if you have a party that has a leadership problem. The danger of you staying there is that the time for primary elections will come and you will have two factions laying claim to it. So from which of the factions are you going to collect form and fill?”

 

He concluded that the uncertainty will likely drive more politicians away from the PDP. “So there is a likelihood of more defections away from the PDP, because a first time governor in the PDP will not be sure whether he will be given a ticket, a senator in PDP will not also be sure whether he will get the ticket. So these are the factors that we have now, and I don’t think it’s going to change in the foreseeable future.”