2027: Opposition may unveil consensus candidate days to election – Lukman

Former Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum, Salihu Lukman, has said opposition parties seeking an alliance against ruling All Progressives Congress may forge a united front by rallying behind a consensus presidential candidate a few days to the 2027 general election.

Lukman, the convener of the the political pressure group, G-100, said the parties were committed to the process and had taken ownership of negotiations aimed at preventing a split in opposition votes.

He spoke on Channels Television’s Hard Copy, on Saturday, expressing confidence that the parties would eventually agree on a common candidate, despite lingering disagreements and a trust deficit among their leaders.

“I can tell you categorically, and my confidence about that comes from what I see in the leadership of the parties: they are committed and they are working, taking all the steps necessary.

“So it could be two months, some weeks to the election, or a few days to the election, they will come out and tell Nigerians this is the direction, and everybody will queue,” he said.

Lukman said the negotiations had expanded beyond the six political parties initially involved, with efforts underway to bring other parties into the proposed alliance.

“They are also working to expand; they are reaching out to other parties,” he said.

The G-100 emerged from efforts to unite opposition forces following an all-opposition summit in Ibadan in April 2026, where participants resolved to pursue a common presidential candidate against the ruling APC.

However, Lukman said the process had since moved beyond the pressure group, with political parties and their presidential candidates taking charge of negotiations to build the confidence needed for a possible alliance.

“When the parties owned the process we had started and took it beyond, took it out of our hands and began to engage each other based on the need to develop the kind of confidence they need to trust one another,” he said.

He identified the trust deficit among opposition parties and their candidates as the biggest obstacle to reaching an agreement.

According to him, a summit held on August 31 agreed to establish five working groups, one of which would handle the selection of a consensus presidential candidate.

Each party, he said, would nominate representatives through its presidential candidate or the party leadership, in line with agreed terms of reference.

“The collegiate is basically about ensuring that both the parties and their candidates are the ones taking the decisions, and at the same time the people doing the work are people who have the mandate of both the parties and the candidates, not anybody from outside,” he said.

On concerns that supporters of former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and the Kwankwasiyya movement might resist any arrangement requiring them to support another candidate, Lukman warned opposition figures against inflexible positions.

“Taking a hardline position, a rigid position, is almost like working for the APC and the Tinubu government at this point,” he added.

He noted that many signatories to the G100’s open letter were supporters of either Obi or Atiku but said the group had consistently urged them to place national interest above individual political ambitions.

According to him, the group has told its supporters that “the country is superior to any individual.”

Lukman also cited a recent intervention by John Cardinal Onaiyekan on Channels Television, arguing that opposition candidates could not divide the votes among themselves and still expect to defeat the ruling party.

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“The arithmetic is simple: you can’t split votes five ways and expect victory in one of you,” he said.

The challenge of opposition unity has remained a major issue ahead of the 2027 elections, with prominent political figures and parties exploring alliances amid concerns that multiple presidential candidates could divide votes that might otherwise strengthen a common challenger to President Bola Tinubu.

On how the parties would reconcile their policy differences, including the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate’s proposal for a starting petrol pump price of N300 per litre, Lukman said the objective was not to merge their manifestos but to agree on a common minimum programme of action.

“It’s not harmonizing manifestos, it’s basically to come up with a minimum programme of action which the government to be produced post-2027 will prioritize implementing,” he said.

He explained that the programme would be agreed upon before the selection of a consensus candidate, ensuring that whoever emerged would be committed to implementing the common priorities.

All candidates, he said, would subscribe to the programme in advance so that “in the event that any of them emerge as the candidate there is no debate.”

Lukman added that the groundwork should not be difficult because the various presidential campaigns had already developed their policy positions.

“I’m sure the Peter Obi campaign has also done some work, I am also sure Prince Adewole Adebayo and all the other candidates have also done their own work,” he said.

He maintained that the eventual candidate could emerge from the African Democratic Congress (ADC), another participating party or a new party formed through an alliance.

“It could be ADC, it could be any other party, or it could be an alliance that will produce a new party,” he stressed.

Lukman also dismissed suggestions that he was pursuing personal political ambitions through the coalition-building effort.

“I don’t have ambition to contest election and I don’t have ambition to hold any appointive or elective office,” he said.

Warning that prolonged insistence on individual candidacies could undermine the opposition’s chances, he urged politicians to recognise that only one person would eventually emerge as president.

“Politicians can lie to themselves, and at the end of the day let the candidates continue to hang on to their candidature, at the end of the day only one person will be president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” he said.

Lukman further addressed his earlier withdrawal of membership of the ADC, attributing the decision to internal issues in Kaduna State. He said he had since resumed membership of the party.

He explained that his concern was that the ADC could reproduce the same problems associated with the established political parties the opposition was seeking to displace.

He said he feared the party was “shifting to a direction where we will end up reproducing the old parties we have left.”

His remarks come as opposition parties face the challenge of converting discussions about a common front into a workable political arrangement, including agreement on a candidate, a shared policy agenda and a structure capable of securing the support of their respective constituencies ahead of the 2027 presidential election.