A member of the opposition coalition, Kenneth Okonkwo, says President Bola Tinubu will win if the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presents a southern presidential candidate like Peter Obi as its flag bearer in the 2027 election.
“My strategy this time around is that I am going to support a northerner in 2027,” Okonkwo said on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Tuesday.
“It must be a northerner that the whole north is willing to support.
“If the whole north is willing to support an Atiku, why not?
Interestingly, Okonkwo was one of the spokespersons for Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election, but he parted ways with the former Anambra governor and dumped the Labour Party in July 2024 over the party’s internal squabbles and Obi’s failure to address them.
Tinubu, who trounced his closest rivals, Atiku and Obi, in the 2023 poll and assumed office in May 2023, is seeking re-election in 2027 to complete the country’s eight-year unwritten rule on rotation of power between the two major regions of the country – the southern and northern regions. Before Tinubu, Muhammadu Buhari, a retired military general from the North-West zone of the country, was in power between May 2015 and May 2023.
On Tuesday, Okonkwo said Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has “become incurably bad and we want to terminate his incumbency”.
“Anybody telling you it’s injustice if the north comes in, if the south comes in, and whoever wins in a primary election will take it for four years. Where is the injustice? It has happened before.
“Anybody telling you to bring a fresh southerner to compete against Tinubu, a southerner, is trying to tell you to zone the ticket to Tinubu and Tinubu will win outright,” Okonkwo said.
He said since the APC is presenting Tinubu to be its flag bearer, the opposition coalition must present a northerner to challenge him.
“If you bring somebody from the Southeast, even if he wins, they will steal it from him.
“Let me tell you the strategy that will make the Southeast man to be president. Do you know the South-West has never contested an election against an incumbent? Strategy? Because they know that in Nigeria, if you don’t have the establishment supporting you, even if you win, they will steal it from you.
“Peter Obi won the election in 2023, and they stole it from us. If you do it again, they will steal it from him because there is no incumbent to back you, but if you bring somebody from the north, nobody will prevail on him to leave his victory because he is not from the same side as you,” he said.
