With fewer than 90 days to the January 16 presidential election, growing hostility between major opposition parties, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), is exposing the difficulty of forging a common strategy against President Bola Tinubu, repeating the pattern of a divided opposition that split the vote in 2023.
The dispute intensified on Sunday after Rabiu Kwankwaso, the NDC vice-presidential candidate, ruled out withdrawing his party’s ticket in favour of the ADC, accusing its Presidential Campaign Council of attacking him, his presidential candidate Peter Obi and their party instead of presenting its own credentials to Nigerians.
The ADC-PCC dismissed his response as diversionary, alleging that Kwankwaso’s repeated criticism of its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, raised questions about his political alignment with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Kwankwaso has rejected suggestions that the NDC ticket is working for the APC.
The exchange has revived concerns that competing ambitions and mistrust among opposition leaders could frustrate another attempt to consolidate their electoral strength before the election.
“We will not withdraw our candidature for the ADC or any other party. We remain confident in our capacity, competence, and readiness to lead Nigeria,” Kwankwaso said.
“The APC-led government has failed Nigerians. The ADC offers no better alternative,” he added.
The confrontation comes after months of unsuccessful negotiations to unite opposition figures under a single platform.
In 2025, Atiku, Obi and other prominent politicians joined the ADC-led coalition with the intention of producing a candidate capable of challenging Tinubu.
The arrangement collapsed ahead of the parties’ planned primary earlier this year after Obi and Kwankwaso withdrew and secured a joint ticket under the NDC.
Atiku subsequently emerged as the ADC presidential candidate, leaving the two major opposition camps to pursue separate electoral strategies.
Two weeks before the initial coalition arrangement broke down, an opposition summit hosted in Ibadan by Seyi Makinde, Oyo State governor and now the presidential candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), ended with a declaration that opposition politicians would work towards producing a single candidate.
Subsequent efforts, including discussions facilitated by the G-100 political pressure group, have struggled to resolve the differences among the leading contenders.
Paul James, an electoral and political process specialist, said the difficulty lies partly in the competing interests of politicians and the constituencies they represent.
“For the Nigerian politician, the common denominator for them is about their interest and then beyond that also, it’s also about the constituency that they all represent,” James said.
He argued that Kwankwaso’s alignment with Obi could be influenced by longer-term political calculations, including the possibility of contesting for the presidency in 2031, when northern politicians may expect power to return to their region under the prevailing power-rotation argument.
For Atiku, James said, the 2027 election could represent his last major opportunity to realise his presidential ambition, making him unlikely to readily surrender the ADC ticket.
“The biggest challenge for the coalition to even happen is the internal fragmentation within the parties as it is,” he said, pointing to the Ibadan summit and G-100 initiative as examples of efforts that have struggled to bring the political leaders to an agreement.
Ghost of the past
The stakes are clear from the 2023 presidential election, when Tinubu won with 8,794,726 votes, against Atiku’s 6,984,520, Obi’s 6,101,533 and Kwankwaso’s 1,496,687, according to results published by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The three opposition candidates who now feature prominently in the coalition debate collectively secured about 14.6 million votes, well above Tinubu’s total.
However, those votes were divided among three separate tickets, while their combined total does not establish how their supporters would vote in a unified contest, it surpassed the winner’s total.
The 2023 result has nevertheless strengthened arguments for an opposition alliance, with proponents warning that another fragmented contest could undermine the parties’ ability to mount a coordinated challenge.
Nigeria’s 2015 election offers a precedent for opposition cooperation. Four opposition parties came together to form the APC, which defeated the ruling People’s Democratic Party and produced the first defeat of an incumbent Nigerian president at the ballot box. The merger remains an important reference point in discussions about building a viable opposition coalition.
Not all opposition figures, however, support the current approach.
Omoyele Sowore, presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), has rejected alignment with established political figures. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim of the Accord Party and Adewole Adebayo of the Social Democratic Party have also moved towards an alternative alliance with Sowore, presenting their approach as distinct from elite-driven coalition negotiations.
James argued that opposition leaders needed to establish a credible process for resolving disagreements and demonstrate their capacity to manage internal differences before they could persuade Nigerians that a broader alliance would work.
“The central question should not necessarily be whether the Nigerian opposition is organising for unity; it is whether they are willing to accept the compromises that unity requires,” he said.
Donald Duke, former Cross River State governor and presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party, has similarly warned that a divided opposition could lose another opportunity to challenge the incumbent. He has expressed willingness to step aside for a consensus candidate capable of defeating Tinubu.
“The reality is that things are bound to happen on that (election) day, how to mitigate those things should be the major concern of the opposition. I don’t like people who cry wolf after it has happened and all that. We have done this several times over, we should anticipate it, and united we stand if we do it. If we don’t, then we will only have ourselves to blame because it has repeated itself,” Duke said in a recent interview.
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