The camps of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi have rejected the push for opposition parties to adopt a single presidential candidate ahead of the 2027 general election.
The development threatens to complicate ongoing efforts to build a formidable opposition coalition capable of challenging President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) at the polls.
The proposal was championed by G-100, a political pressure group led by former Progressive Governors’ Forum Director-General, Salihu Lukman. The group has argued that opposition parties must set aside individual ambitions and unite behind one presidential candidate to avoid splitting the opposition vote.
However, while both Atiku and Obi’s camps remain open to broader cooperation among opposition forces, neither appears prepared to surrender its presidential ambition simply to facilitate the emergence of another candidate.
Earlier, Atiku’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said the former Vice President welcomed genuine efforts aimed at strengthening democratic opposition and providing Nigerians with an alternative to the Tinubu administration.
Shaibu, however, stressed that any coalition-building process must be transparent, inclusive and democratic, and should ultimately produce a candidate capable of earning the confidence of Nigerians.
He added that Atiku was consulting political leaders and stakeholders across the opposition and that the outcome of the consultations would be made public at the appropriate time.
On the Obi side, the Obidient Movement said an invitation had been extended to the former Anambra governor to attend the proposed opposition summit.
However, National Coordinator of the movement, Tanko Yunusa, indicated that Obi would decide whether to participate. He also maintained that the opposition should unite behind the most viable platform, identifying the Labour Party as that platform.
The G-100 had earlier called on major opposition figures, including Atiku, Obi, Rabiu Kwankwaso and Rotimi Amaechi, to subordinate their individual ambitions to the broader objective of defeating the APC in 2027.
The group warned that a divided opposition could once again hand an electoral advantage to the ruling party by splitting votes among several presidential candidates.
With Atiku and Obi unwilling to immediately commit to a single-candidate arrangement, the opposition coalition effort now faces a major hurdle: who gets the presidential ticket and under what conditions?
Political observers will be watching closely to see whether the various opposition camps can negotiate a compromise before the 2027 election or whether they will ultimately enter the contest with separate presidential candidates.
The latest development suggests that while opposition leaders may agree on the need for cooperation, agreeing on a common presidential candidate remains a far more difficult task.