Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
The presidential election of 16 January 2027 is fast approaching, and many will be tempted to read it as a mere contest between parties, between the African Democratic Congress and the All Progressives Congress, between Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu, or between North and South. On the surface it may appear so. In truth it is none of these alone. It is a reckoning between the Nigerian people and a government whose legacy is a catalogue of failed promises, and of the hardship, anguish and insecurity it has visited upon them.
The battle line is drawn, and the Nigerian people, as voters, stand ready. The ominous signs now hovering over the ruling party are the disillusionment of the masses and the steady movement of aggrieved Nigerians toward a credible alternative. The clouds are gathering, and the hope of a new beginning rises with them.
A NEW PLATFORM, THE SAME UNBROKEN MISSION
Atiku Abubakar now carries the hopes of the suffering masses on the platform of the African Democratic Congress, the rallying point of the coalition assembled to rescue the country. Under the chairmanship of Senator David Mark, with Rauf Aregbesola as National Secretary, the ADC has become the broad tent into which aggrieved Nigerians of every region have walked.
Atiku emerged as its presidential candidate through a nationwide direct primary held across the wards of the Federation on 25 May 2026, a grassroots mandate rather than the transaction of a handful of delegates. With Rotimi Amaechi as his running mate, the ticket is settled, and the mission that has defined his public life is unbroken. The party is new. The man, and the cause, are tested.
NOVELTY IS NO BARRIER
Let no one be deceived by the argument that the African Democratic Congress is a young platform. Novelty has never stopped a determined people. In the Osun governorship election of 2026, a small and unfancied party defeated the ruling party in spite of the full weight of federal machinery and a documented freeze on the state’s accounts. The All Progressives Congress itself was a party of barely two years’ standing when it unseated a sitting President in 2015.
Parties do not win elections. Mass support wins elections. And the mass support now flowing to Atiku Abubakar, from the aggrieved of every zone, is the surest currency in any democracy.
THE WEIGHT NIGERIANS NOW CARRY
The evidence of failure is not a matter of opinion but of figures. Almost 6 in 10 Nigerians now live in poverty by the World Bank’s reckoning. Inflation stood at 15.91 per cent in June 2026, with food inflation at 17.52 per cent. A national minimum wage of 70,000 naira is worth about 47 dollars. Growth crawled at 3.89 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 while the cost of living galloped. On the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index the country scored 26 out of 100, ranking 142nd.
These are not abstractions. They are the daily arithmetic of a hungry and frightened people, harried on the roads by kidnappers and in their homes by fear.
The Nigerian you meet on the street today may say nothing, yet the unhappiness is etched on the face.
They surely did not bargain for this raw deal, and they are determined not to repeat the mistake.
THE MAN MOST PREPARED
In all his speeches, and across every policy document he has published, Atiku Abubakar showcases himself as the man most suitable and most prepared to lead Nigeria to posterity. He does not campaign on slogans. He campaigns on a plan: to diversify the economy away from crude oil and imports, to restructure the federation so that the states can compete and attain their full potential, to create wealth and jobs, and to place the economy on a path of self-sustaining, non-inflationary growth.
His creed of true federalism and a leaner, more efficient centre is not a convenience of the season. It is the settled conviction of a lifetime. Where others improvise, he speaks from a body of thought he has held, refined and defended for decades, and he does so with the clarity of a man who has read the country’s problems to their root.
And he has done it before. In the government that took charge of the economy from 1999, the record is not rhetoric but numbers. Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product grew from 58 billion dollars in 1999 to 270 billion dollars by 2007. The nation exited the Paris Club debt, and its external debt was brought down to about 3.5 billion dollars by 2006. A leader is best judged by what he has already built.
Atiku built then, and he stands ready to build again.
THE ONLY NORTHERN CANDIDATE, AND THE CONSCIENCE OF THE MASSES
The field is not yet a single opposition. Three tickets stand against the ruling party, and of the leading contenders Atiku alone is a son of the North, while the others are of the South. As the Southern vote divides, the North consolidates behind the one candidate who speaks for it, and the arithmetic turns steadily against the incumbent.
Yet Atiku comes to the field not as a divider but as a unifier and a bridge builder, a man whose experience, competence and thriving enterprise commend him to Nigerians of every faith and every zone. In him they see somebody who understands the challenges confronting the nation and possesses the wherewithal to fix the structural defects behind poverty, hunger, poor health and insecurity. He does not set one section against another. He gathers them.
A CLOSING WORD
The Nigerian people are living through unprecedented times, and the socio-economic helplessness forced upon them has left them traumatised. But they are resolved to resist, and they will not make the same mistake twice. From the North to the South, the clamour for Atiku Abubakar rises on his industry, his experience, his competence and his solid record.
It falls to every well-meaning Nigerian to collect the voter’s card, to guard it, and to convert this longing into a verdict at the polling unit that no manipulation can overturn.
With God, with that clamour, and with its translation into votes on 16 January 2027, now just 152 days away, Atiku Abubakar is the next President of Nigeria.
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director General
The Narrative Force
thenarrativeforce.org
18 August 2026
