2027: Atiku Opposes South Ticket Zoning, Warns It Could Secure Tinubu’s Re-Election

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has warned opposition parties against zoning the 2027 presidential ticket to the South, arguing that such a move could hand President Bola Ahmed Tinubu an easy path to re-election.
In a statement released by his camp, Atiku maintained that fielding another southern candidate against a sitting southern president would be politically unwise and without precedent in Nigeria’s democratic history.
According to the statement, opposition parties should prioritise building a strong coalition capable of defeating the ruling party instead of pursuing what it described as sentimental political calculations.
“At the core of the question is: how does a Southern opposition candidate realistically unseat a sitting Southern president?” the statement queried.
“Nigerian political history offers no precedent for such an outcome. To insist otherwise is to enter the contest already defeated.”
Atiku’s camp argued that if opposition leaders insist on zoning the presidency to the South, they might as well allow Tinubu to contest unchallenged, insisting that such a strategy lacks the national strength needed to defeat an incumbent president.
The statement also criticised supporters of southern zoning, describing their position as “intellectually dishonest” and detached from current political realities.
“Defeating an incumbent president requires realism, not romanticism; strategy, not sentiment; honesty, not selective memory,” the statement added.
The former vice president’s camp further urged opposition leaders to decide whether their focus is on symbolic political gestures or genuinely taking power in 2027.
On the issue of fairness and power rotation, Atiku’s camp argued that by 2027, the South would have occupied the presidency for 18 years, while the North would have spent only 10 years in power during the current democratic dispensation.
“It becomes difficult to understand the justice in an argument that seeks to deepen an already existing imbalance under the guise of equity,” the statement noted.
The camp also accused some advocates of southern zoning of hypocrisy, recalling that many of them supported former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011 despite calls at the time for power to return to the North.
“It is intellectually dishonest for those who supported a Southern presidency in 2011 to now posture as custodians of rotational justice,” the statement added.
While acknowledging the Southeast’s aspiration to produce Nigeria’s president, Atiku’s camp criticised what it described as “transactional political bargaining” and “symbolic tokenism,” warning against arrangements allegedly tailored to satisfy personal ambitions rather than creating a genuine pathway to power for the region.
The statement concluded by urging opposition stakeholders to focus on forming a broad national alliance capable of defeating Tinubu in the 2027 general election instead of becoming consumed by zoning debates.