Leaders of six opposition political parties converged on Monday in Abuja to begin negotiations to forge a common platform ahead of the 2027 general election.
The historic meeting, which was held at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Center, brought together presidential and vice-presidential candidates, national officers, and members of the Boards of Trustees (BoT) of the participating parties, in what organizers described as the first summit of Nigeria’s opposition political parties.
Though some of the leading presidential candidates, including the African Democratic Congress (ADC) candidate, Atiku Abubakar; the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate, Peter Obi; and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) presidential candidate and Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, were absent, their parties were represented by senior officials.
Among those physically present were the Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential candidate, Prince Adewole Adebayo; Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) presidential candidate, Donald Duke; and APM Vice-Presidential candidate, Lawal Musa Daura.
The summit centered on one of the opposition’s most difficult political questions ahead of 2027: how to move from separate party structures and presidential ambitions to a coordinated electoral strategy capable of producing a common candidate and shared reform agenda.
The gathering, convened with the involvement of the G100, also produced a proposed framework for what its proponents called a Government of National Competence.
Presenting the proposal on behalf of the G100, Mallam Salihu Mohammed Lukman said the proposed arrangement would be based on competence, integrity, national inclusion, and equitable representation among participating parties.
“The Framework before you is proposing something more demanding than a merger of ambitions: a Government of National Competence, built on competence, integrity, national inclusion, and fair representation of every party that contributes to the effort,” he said, adding that such a government should be “secured by a political commitment to a single four-year term, written into an enforceable Transition Charter.”
According to Lukman, the success of any opposition arrangement would depend on the strength of the commitments made by its participants, rather than on declarations of political solidarity alone.
“We want to underline the word ‘enforceable.’ This gathering doesn’t need more sincerity. Nigerian politics has never suffered from a shortage of sincere promises. What it has suffered from is promises that nobody could enforce when the person who made them changed his/her mind,” he said, insisting that any resolution “must be written, it must be witnessed, and it must have consequences”.
He traced the evolution of opposition politics in the Fourth Republic, pointing to the presidential elections of 2003, 2007 and 2011 as periods when opposition forces contested separately before a more coordinated strategy preceded the 2015 election.
According to him, the 2023 experience provided another lesson in the consequences of multiple opposition presidential candidates competing separately for the same pool of voters.
“The winner took just under nine million votes. One opposition candidate took close to seven million. Another took just over six million. Thirteen million votes on one side of the argument, under nine million on the other. And the side with fewer votes formed the government, lawfully, constitutionally and entirely predictably,” he said.
“Nobody stole thirteen million votes. We divided them ourselves, in public, and we did it knowing exactly what the consequence would be,” he added.
The issue of political coordination also featured prominently in the intervention of the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Fred Agbedi, who led members of the Minority Caucus to the summit.
Agbedi said the caucus had resolved to work with the G100 in seeking greater coordination among opposition parties, drawing lessons from the political realignment that preceded the 2015 general election.
“In the spirit of creating a viable opposition and ensuring that we win the 2027 election collectively, the Minority Caucus of the House of Reps decided that we partner with the G100 to see how opposition parties can come together, streamline our ambitions, and ensure that we take this government out,” he said.
For Donald Duke, the challenge confronting the opposition is not necessarily a shortage of political personalities, but the willingness of individual actors to subordinate personal ambitions to a jointly agreed arrangement.
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