•All political parties believe their candidates can solve Nigeria’s problems —APP National Chairman
•Opposition leaders, candidates are excited; we’ll put together technical committees —Sergius Ogun
•They should form consensus front around three major policy trajectories of current administration —Aigbe
Ongoing efforts by the G100 to rally opposition political parties and other stakeholders around a consensus presidential candidate ahead of the 2027 general elections may suffer a major setback, as prominent political actors expressed grave concerns over the timing of the initiative, the emergence of candidates by the various political parties, competing political ambitions and regional considerations.
While the proponents of the initiative believe that opposition parties must work together to challenge President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), critics argued that the time to produce a consensus candidate may have passed, particularly as political parties have already selected their presidential candidates and transmitted their names and their running mates to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The three respondents who spoke during separate interviews with Nigerian Tribune, however, agreed that the opposition needs a strategy capable of preventing the fragmentation of its votes, although they differed significantly on whether a single presidential candidate is still achievable.
While the APP National Chairman, Chief Uche Nnadi, described the proposal as difficult to realise, Hon. Sergius Ogun said the G100’s objective goes beyond producing one candidate, while the Senior Programme Officer of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), Comrade Austin Aigbe, urged the opposition to concentrate on a few major issues rather than merely seeking a consensus candidate.
Speaking exclusively with the Nigerian Tribune, National Chairman of the Action Peoples Party (APP), Chief Uche Nnadi, said the legal and political realities surrounding the 2027 election would make the G100 proposal extremely difficult to accomplish.
Nnadi noted that the G100 was not a political party recognised by law and therefore could not independently sponsor a presidential candidate, stressing that its role could only be that of a pressure group engaging registered political parties and their leadership.
“That’s the beauty of democracy. Democracy is an opportunity for people to freely choose their leaders. But the group you just mentioned, G100, unfortunately, is not one of the political parties recognised by law. We have 21 political parties in Nigeria,” he said.
According to him, only registered political parties could nominate candidates for elections, meaning that the G100 would have to persuade existing political parties to harmonise their positions and adopt one of the candidates already nominated.
But he said such an arrangement would be difficult because all the parties had already concluded their presidential selection processes.
“But going by any timetable, the timing of realising such a consensus candidate has passed. All the presidential candidates, they have all emerged in the different political parties. So it will be a very, very difficult thing to achieve because political parties, they have already chosen their candidates at this point,” Nnadi said. He explained that the major obstacle was the confidence that each political party had in its own candidate, saying parties would not have nominated individuals if they did not believe those candidates had the capacity to address Nigeria’s challenges.
“As of this moment, each political party that fielded their presidential candidates believe in the ability and capacity of their presidential candidates to solve the problem of Nigeria,” he said.
Nnadi also questioned the practical outcome of the earlier opposition summit in Ibadan, noting that some prominent participants were already presidential candidates of different political parties. He said the fact that the candidates had their own platforms and political structures made the emergence of a consensus candidate more complicated.
“The G100 is, first and foremost, bringing together the opposition. Yes, maybe the primary reason would be to bring together one presidential candidate, but even if we don’t achieve that, we want them to bring their resources together to challenge the government in office today,” Ogun said.
While noting that the G100 was already making progress in bringing opposition parties together, Hon. Ogun a member of the 9th House of Representatives, said the objective was not necessarily to force political parties to abandon their identities, but to create a mechanism through which they could jointly challenge the ruling administration while retaining their separate structures for legislative elections.
On his part, Senior Programme Officer of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), Austin Aigbe, however, expressed stronger reservations about the G100’s strategy, saying the opposition had missed the most favourable period for building a consensus presidential candidacy.
He argued that the opposition should have commenced the process much earlier, drawing a comparison with the formation of the APC, which eventually defeated the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 presidential election.
“The moment for the G100 to have met is past. You cannot wait until candidates have gone ahead to pursue their ambition and there you are, you’re talking about G100 to try to have a governance opposition front,” Aigbe said.
According to him, the opposition had previously missed opportunities to create a new political platform and subsequently adopted the African Democratic Congress (ADC), but the controversies surrounding the emerging opposition arrangement had complicated efforts to build a genuinely independent front.
Aigbe argued that the strategy could replicate the approach adopted by the APC in 2015, when it built its campaign around a limited number of issues, including insecurity, the economy and corruption.
He also warned that regional considerations could complicate the emergence of a consensus candidate, particularly because of the debate over whether power should remain in the South or return to the North after the current administration.
According to him, the large number of presidential candidates from the South, compared with the number from the North, could result in a fragmented southern vote and strengthen the position of the strongest northern candidate.
He therefore advised the G100 to be strategic by focusing on the most electorally viable opposition candidates instead of attempting to unite all the presidential candidates.
“They know the opposition. There are just about five of them. They don’t need all the 17. You just need about five. Because this race will end up becoming a three-horse race,” Aigbe said.
