Before the general elections of 2027, Kenneth Okonkwo, a head of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), has declared that Peter Obi, the former presidential candidate of the Labor Party, has little chance of emerging the president in the next cycle due to the dynamics of entrenched power of Nigeria.
Speaking in politics today, a channel television program was broadcast on Tuesday night, Okonkwo, who previously served as OBI spokesman in the 2023 campaign, argued that only a heavy political weight of the north can unravel President Bola Tinubu realistic.
“If you bring someone from southeast, even if you win, they will steal it,” Okonkwo said.
He added that Obi, despite his third place with more than six million votes in 2023, lacked the support of the necessary establishment to protect his mandate.
“Peter Obi won the elections in 2023, and they stole it from us,” Okonkwo insisted, a claim repeatedly rejected by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Okonkwo, who officially left the Labor Party in July 2024 on internal currencies, now believes that the only way to the victory in 2027 is through a strong northern candidate backed by the establishment.
“My strategy this time is that I will support a Northerner in 2027,” he said. “If the whole north is willing to support Atiku, why not? Or also? Or the-Rufai?”
He argued that pushing another southern candidate against Tinubu, himself a southern, would only reinforce control of the holder.
“Anyone who tells him to bring a new southern to compete against Tinubu, a southern, is trying to tell him the ticket to Tinubu,” Okonkwo said.
The former Nollywood actor also pointed to the unwritten power rotation tradition of Nigeria, noting that although the south may feel entitled to complete a second mandate after Tinubu's mandate, political realities dictate otherwise.
“Do you know that the southwest has never played a choice against a headline?” Okonkwo asked rhetorically.
“Because they know that in Nigeria, if you don't have the establishment that supports you, even if you win, they will steal it.”
His comments come in the midst of a growing impulse for a great opposition alliance.
On July 2, 2025, the main political figures such as Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Nasir El-Rufai, Rotimi Amachi, David Mark and Rauf Aregbesola adopted the ADC as a unifying platform to challenge the congress of all progressives (APC) in 2027.
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