The politics of 2027 is now fully upon us and has even become the only game in town. It is what explains the sustained surge in open and disguised political activities right from the beginning of 2025. It is the driving force behind the moves and the counter-moves by the leading political actors. It is, simultaneously, the aminating spirit behind the feverish quest for an opposition coalition and the unceasing wave of defections to and hasty endorsements within the ruling party.

The 2027 electioneering period has been brought forward, informally and regrettably, by more than a year. Politicking, the all-consuming passion of Nigerian politicians and the always excitable segments of the populace, has crowded out all else. And even this far out, the line has been drawn: all things being equal, the next presidential race is likely to be between President Bola Tinubu, verbally anointed on Thursday as the sole presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and whoever emerges as the candidate of whatever party is adopted as the unified opposition platform for the next general election. A further caveat is appropriate here: things are not always equal in politics—almost always, there is an X factor, some dramatic twist.  

Nevertheless, it appears we are set for another tantalising electoral contest. It may end up as a battle royale or as an anti-climax. As expected, leaders of the two groups are convinced they have a clear path to victory. But it has been demonstrated time and again that politics is anything but a science. In politics, anything is possible, especially when there is substantial amount of time and complex dynamics at play. There is a possibility that the opposition, if they get and keep their act together, might muster an upset, as we witnessed in the 2015 presidential election. There is also a possibility that the incumbent, if it sustains its totalising momentum, may manage not just to limp over the line but to completely steamroll the opposition.

There is also a possibility that either of the parties may win or lose not solely on the basis of its own acumen but on account of what the opposing party does or does not do. Even when you control for the usual games that most of our politicians play to different extent, Party A may win simply because Party B refuses to rise to the occasion. At this fuzzy but exciting point of the race, nothing is guaranteed. Our electoral history has shown, even if to different degrees of statistical significance, that an incumbent and a coalition candidate can win or lose. So, those getting over themselves about a predictable outcome based on the current state of play need to calm down a bit. The only certainty, now and eventually, is that only one winner will emerge. Both (or all) camps cannot win.

The consensus among the clear-eyed members of the opposition camp is that President Tinubu is vulnerable but formidable. They are right on both counts. The degree may vary, but every Nigerian president who has stood for re-election since we embraced the presidential system in 1979 has been vulnerable. President Shehu Shagari was in 1983; President Olusegun Obasanjo was in 2003; President Goodluck Jonathan was in 2015; and President Muhammadu Buhari was in 2019. The reason is simple: elections are usually a referendum on the incumbent and most incumbents struggle in their first terms.

But Tinubu’s vulnerability is in a special class: he got elected in the first instance with a low margin (36.61% of the votes comparable only to Shagari’s 33.77% in 1979); Tinubu is widely perceived to have alienated the key actors and the zones that helped him to secure the needed numbers in 2023; and Tinubu’s signature reforms have unleashed the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades. His vulnerability differs in that it touches the vast majority of Nigerians where it matters most: in their pockets and their stomachs.

But the opposition is also right in seeing Tinubu as a formidable proposition—he is even more formidable now than when they first encountered him as a candidate in 2023. All incumbent presidents should be seen as formidable, until they are not. Incumbency confers many unearned advantages especially through untrammelled access to state resources and assets. This is more so in developing countries where almost everything revolves around the state and especially in a place like Nigeria where the central philosophy of politics is patronage. Tinubu, the first machine-politician to occupy the presidency, will definitely not be shy in pressing state apparatuses and the power of patronage to his advantage.

This is why the move for a coalition of parties and personalities makes eminent sense. To stand any chance against a vulnerable but formidable Tinubu, the leading opposition parties would need to band together. And from all indications, the African Democratic Congress (ADC), not the Social Democratic Party (SDP), is the favoured vehicle. Agreeing to a united platform on time is also good for the opposition. This was the path taken in 2012/2013 by APC, the only opposition coalition to have caused an upset in our presidential history. ADC hopes to be the next APC. Maybe. Maybe not.

Forming a coalition does not necessarily guarantee victory. Opposition parties have always tried to come together to enhance their electoral chances against the dominant, favoured or ruling party. They do this under different arrangements, mostly through alliances and mass migrations but sometimes through mergers. The arrangements sometimes hold but most times do not. The only time we didn’t see the move for a coalition of opposition parties was at a time when there was no need for such: during the stillborn Third Republic when the military decreed two political parties.

At the dawn of the current republic in 1999, the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the All People’s Party (APP) worked out a quaint arrangement to pose a credible challenge to the favoured Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Chief Olu Falae, AD’s candidate, flew the flag of APP and had Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi of APP as running mate. Two parties banded against one, but the alliance still fell short. In the presidential poll, PDP secured victory in 27 states plus FCT, leaving the AD-APP alliance with only nine states (though the two parties had won the governorship elections in 14 states earlier—eight by APP and six by AD). So, while having a coalition is a necessary first step when up against a formidable candidate, it is neither enough nor the end goal. The end goal is having a winning coalition.

(As a quick aside, what we are witnessing is a potential battle of coalitions on both sides—the opposition banding together and the ruling party enhancing its size by swallowing the opposition. In this my coalition-is-bigger-than-yours face-off, both sides are angling and hoping for a winning coalition. There are those who contend that the election will be decided by the people not the politicians. True. But what this hopeful contention misses is that there is a reason our politicians put a lot of store on political structures: they are, until tested and overturned, the surest path to assembling a winning coalition.)

The opposition parties have some hurdles to scale to turn their emerging coalition into a winning coalition. The first hurdle is ensuring that the coalition does not fracture. It is an open secret that at least two of those holding the talks are priming to run for presidency: Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi. Will either of them stay in the coalition if he does not or stand a chance of emerging or if he does not emerge as the presidential flagbearer? If whoever loses out opts to run on the platform of another party, then we are back to a three-way horserace which is likely to advantage the incumbent.

It has been mooted that the two could run together in the coalition party, as they did in 2019, with Atiku as the candidate and Obi as the running mate. This is an interesting proposition, underlaid with two assumptions. One, that Obi has an incentive to run as someone’s running mate. And two, that if he agrees to subsuming his interest in running at the top of the ticket, both personalities would retain the votes they secured separately in the 2023 presidential polls. Politics, Nigerian politics, does not necessarily yield to such neat arithmetic. This may be the definition of a non sequitur: assuming that all the northerners who voted for Atiku in 2023 (in heed of the your-own-is-your-own slogan) and the other northerners who currently believe their zones have been sidelined will all line up behind him to do just one term or that the bloc votes that Obi received as the candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in 2023 will be transferred to a ticket on which he is a running mate. But then in politics nothing is impossible.    

The next hurdle for the coalition will be how it handles the unwritten agreement about the rotation of power between the north and the south. In this wise, the coalition’s best shot will be to present a southerner who can do only one term so that the south can complete its two terms and the presidency returns to the north in the next electoral cycle. One approach will be to zone the presidency of the coalition to the south and ensure that the eventual candidate signs a public undertaking. But this is not likely to work, as it will always be difficult to stop an incumbent president from seeking for re-election. The other option is to go for a southerner who can serve only four years because he is term-barred. That naturally leads to President Jonathan. Though Jonathan has been speaking in proverbs lately, but it is doubtful that he has the stomach to take on an incumbent.

The last hurdle for the coalition will be selling itself creditably. It is not enough to assume that Nigerians all want Tinubu out or that they would vote for anyone but the incumbent. It is also not enough to assume that having all those who ran against Tinubu in 2023 in the same tent would automatically translate to an aggregation of the opposition votes of 2023 in 2027. Elections, our elections, do not lend themselves to such neat or automatic aggregation.  Equally, it is not enough to think the only way Tinubu can win is to steal or buy the votes.

They have to make a compelling case about what they stand for, not just who they stand against. That case would not be made by just railing against the incumbent or threatening regional veto or going on ad nauseum about the supposed death of democracy or the danger of a one-party state. Neither will that case be made by claiming a faux sainthood or by coming across as just a coalition of the disgruntled and the displaced who want to use Nigerians to exact a revenge for them. They need to differentiate themselves by showing that they have an alternative vision of politics, that they are offering a different approach to governance and they are likely to do things remarkably differently in the same circumstances. And the task of differentiation will be harder if the hardship in the land begins to ease. There might be a sizeable number of Nigerians ready to give Tinubu another chance or just be willing to wait out another four years instead of betting on another person.

These are not insurmountable hurdles. More than what the incumbent does, how the opposition handles these hurdles will go a long way to determine whether a second upset is probable or a coronation is inevitable. This doesn’t mean Tinubu is a passive player or that he would surrender all the cards to the opposition. It also does not mean that Tinubu is home and dry, even with all the showy endorsements and the cards stacked against the opposition. He has a lot of work to do to stand a credible chance himself. Incumbency, as he will know by now, is not all advantages. It is equally a burden. He has more work to do than welcoming or seducing migrants from the other parties. He still has plenty work to do in the plenty time remaining. But the opposition is in a position to make it easier or harder for him. At this moment, the ball is with the opposition but in its half of the pitch. It can keep the ball, be overpowered to lose it or gift it. We will keep a close eye on this prematurely flagged-off game.