Opposition governors’ split-ticket strategy echoes 2003 political crossfire

…last man standing in 2003 now beneficiary of next gamble

President Bola Tinubu is consolidating support ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 election, drawing opposition governors into his re-election campaign in a move that risks weakening their parties and repeating the political miscalculation that cost five governors their seats in 2003.

Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra and Ademola Adeleke of Osun have joined the expanded All Progressives Congress (APC) campaign council while remaining governors elected on other party platforms.

Their alignment broadens Tinubu’s political base but questions the strength of the opposition and the implications for Nigeria’s democratic competition.

The APC already counts 31 of Nigeria’s 36 governors, and with Soludo and Adeleke, the president can now claim 33 governors going into the election. He also has the backing of the PDP faction led by Nyesom Wike, the current minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

For the president’s strategists, it is a show of strength, but democracy advocates say it is a warning sign and potential trap for the governors.

A threat to the contest itself

Democracy advocates say the open alignment of opposition figures with the ruling party hollows out the idea of opposition. When the people elected to challenge a government campaign for it, voters lose the alternatives that make an election a real choice.

Nigeria has seen governors back a sitting president before, but never like this. In the build-up to 2023, Wike, then Rivers State governor, led the so-called G-5, a group of aggrieved PDP governors who worked against their own party’s candidate, Atiku Abubakar. They quietly favoured Tinubu or Peter Obi. But they never appeared on the APC or Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, because they remained card-carrying PDP members.

That distinction is gone, critics argue that open anti-party activity, however convenient for the president, sets a precedent that could erode party loyalty, blur the lines between government and opposition, and make Nigeria’s political landscape harder to hold to account.

“The most significant implication is the possibility of narrowing effective political competition if opposition fragmentation and the movement of political officeholders towards the ruling party continue without credible alternative platforms,” Paul James, an electoral and political process specialist, said.

“Some of these political figures are aligning with the incumbent president, not necessarily his ruling party, to advance their own ambitions.

“Political elites may align with the president without necessarily bringing their voters along. What I fear most are the promises to deliver votes for the president. I hope we do not end up with manufactured votes,” James said.

The down-ballot danger

The bigger risk may be local. The presidential vote and the National Assembly elections will be held on the same day, and analysts warn that this timing could turn the governors’ calculation against them.

Neither Soludo nor Adeleke will be on the ballot in 2027. Soludo is already serving his second term, and Adeleke recently won re-election. Their own seats are safe. Their parties’ candidates for the Senate and House of Representatives are not.

Oyo State offers a recent warning. In 2023, Governor Seyi Makinde backed Tinubu over his own party’s nominee, Atiku. His political machine and supporters moved with him, and a bandwagon effect followed. Voters who thumbed the APC logo for president did the same for the legislature on the same day.

The result was a sweep. The APC took all three Senate seats in Oyo State: Oyo Central, Oyo North and Oyo South. It also won the vast majority of the state’s 14 House of Representatives seats, leaving the governor’s PDP badly depleted at the federal level.

Makinde protected his personal brand, three weeks later, in a standalone governorship election, he won re-election in a landslide. His National Assembly candidates had no such protection. They were caught in the crossfire of his alliance with Tinubu.

The 2003 cautionary tale

If Oyo is the recent warning, 2003 is the dire one. At the time, the pan-Yoruba group Afenifere and the leadership of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) decided not to field a presidential candidate. They directed South West voters to back President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba man from Ogun State running on the PDP platform.

The deal rested on a split-ticket understanding: vote Obasanjo for president, but return the AD governors and lawmakers at the state and legislative levels but that collapsed.

Once voters were mobilised to vote PDP at the top of the ticket, a political tsunami swept through the South West. Of the six AD governors who had supported Obasanjo, five lost their seats to the PDP, including Segun Osoba of Ogun and Bisi Akande of Osun. Only Bola Tinubu of Lagos survived, after refusing to fully lower his guard.

The irony is hard to miss. The man who survived the last split-ticket gamble is now the beneficiary of the next one.

“Nigerians are becoming increasingly politically conscious and are learning to split their votes among parties. However, the risk of the governors’ preferred candidates losing, particularly in Osun State, remains high,” Abiola Ismail, a political scientist, said.

“Although the governors are supporting the president, the APC will still campaign and mobilise for its own candidates, potentially creating a clash of interests with the governors. The governors and their parties must therefore be strategic to avoid a repeat of what happened to the PDP’s National Assembly candidates in Oyo State in 2023,” he noted

What comes next?

For Soludo and Adeleke, the question is whether they can do what Makinde did and keep their personal standing intact while their parties pay the price. The 2003 experience suggests that when presidential momentum builds, it does not stop at the presidential line.

For the country, the question is bigger. Presidential campaigns are supposed to test a government’s record against credible alternatives. If the alternatives are lining up behind the government, the contest in 2027 may be decided long before a single vote is cast.