By Kunle Oshobi
Once again, two men who claim to want change have chosen personal ambition over coalition. Nigeria’s opposition cannot afford the price of their restlessness.
There is a particular kind of political damage that comes not from the enemy’s strength but from friendly fire. Nigeria’s opposition has been bleeding from that wound for years, and the men holding the weapons, Peter Obi and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, have once again reloaded. Their reported departure from the African Democratic Congress (ADC) to pitch their ambitions under yet another platform is not a surprise. It is a pattern, and patterns tell the truth that press conferences hide.
Both men arrived at the ADC with fanfare, the language of change on their lips and the implicit promise that, this time, they had found a home serious enough to challenge Bola Tinubu’s All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2027. That promise, it appears, had an expiry date.
A RECORD THAT SPEAKS FOR ITSELF
Peter Obi is one of Nigeria’s most travelled politicians, not internationally, but across party registers. He began his political career under the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), won the Anambra governorship twice, then defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2014. He served as Atiku Abubakar’s running mate on the PDP ticket in 2019, then decamped to the Labour Party (LP) ahead of 2023, a move he framed as a principled rejection of Nigeria’s old-guard politics. After the election, he drifted towards the ADC. Now, reports suggest another departure is imminent.
His party trail reads less like a man searching for the right vehicle and more like a man searching for the most convenient one:
APGA → PDP → Labour Party → ADC → NDC?
Kwankwaso’s record is, if anything, more instructive. A former governor of Kano State and former minister of defence, he has been a member of the PDP, the APC, back to the PDP, and then the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), which he used as his platform for a presidential run in 2023. He is now, reportedly, prepared to abandon the ADC he recently joined to pursue a fresh arrangement. Kwankwaso has long been candid about his brand of politics: transactional, bloc-based, and unapologetically personal. He delivers the Kano vote; in exchange, he expects power or proximity to it. When the calculation doesn’t work, he moves.
“A man who has changed parties five times in fifteen years is not a reformer. He is a negotiator looking for the best offer.”
WHAT 2023 SHOULD HAVE TAUGHT THEM
The 2023 presidential election produced a result that, by raw mathematics, should disturb both men deeply. Bola Tinubu won the presidency with approximately 8.8 million votes, a plurality in a fractured field. Obi, running on the Labour Party ticket, secured around 6.1 million votes. Atiku Abubakar of the PDP got roughly 6.9 million. Kwankwaso, on the NNPP, drew about 1.5 million.
8.8m Tinubu / APC votes cast (2023),
14.5m Combined Obi + Atiku vote (2023) ~5.7m
Margin by which a unified opposition would have led
The arithmetic is blunt: a united opposition ticket combining Obi’s southern base, Atiku’s north, and Kwankwaso’s Kano numbers would have constituted a formidable challenge. Instead, three separate egos produced three separate results — and a Tinubu inauguration. For men who claim to prioritise Nigeria’s future over personal fortune, the lesson was apparently insufficient.
THE INSTABILITY PROBLEM
There is a distinction between principled defection and political opportunism, and it lies largely in consistency of stated purpose. Nelson Mandela’s ANC never became irrelevant to him. Obafemi Awolowo, for all his political turbulence, was identifiable by a coherent ideology. When a politician changes parties as frequently as some change governors, it becomes fair, and necessary for voters to ask what, precisely, they are being loyal to.
For Obi, the question is especially pointed because his 2023 appeal was built almost entirely on the language of character: the “Obidient” movement drew millions of young, first-time voters precisely because they believed he represented something different. Each defection since erodes that foundation a little further. An opposition that cannot hold its own standard-bearer to a standard of consistency cannot credibly promise Nigerians stability in government.
For Kwankwaso, there is at least an honesty to his approach: he has never pretended his politics are ideological. He operates a patron-client model, and his supporters, largely concentrated in Kano and environs, follow him personally rather than any party structure. The problem is that this model, while effective for delivering bloc votes, is structurally incompatible with broad coalition-building. You cannot build a national opposition movement on a foundation of personal fiefdoms.
WHAT THE OPPOSITION MUST DO INSTEAD
The 2027 election will not be won by the candidate with the most colourful defection story. It will be won, if it can be won at all against an incumbent with full access to state resources, by an opposition that presents Nigerians with a united, credible alternative. That requires compromise, patience, and the willingness to subsume individual ambition within a collective project.
Both Obi and Kwankwaso are experienced enough to know this. That they appear willing to fracture the opposition again anyway says something. Whether that something is mere vanity, strategic miscalculation, or something more troubling, Nigerian voters will ultimately have to judge. But they should do so with eyes open to the record, not just the rhetoric.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso are not villains. They are politicians who have consistently chosen personal positioning over collective strategy at precisely the moments when collective strategy mattered most. In 2023, that choice helped hand the presidency to Bola Tinubu. If they repeat it in the run-up to 2027, history will record not just what they failed to win, but what they chose not to build.
Kunle Oshobi is the Head of Strategy and Planning of The Narrative Force
