A professor of Communication, Kennesaw State University, Farooq Kperogi, has urged Nigeria’s opposition parties to set aside self-interest and division if they hope to challenge President Bola Tinubu in 2027.

He made the call at the departmental seminar series organised by the Department of Political Science, Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo.

Speaking on the theme: ‘Opposition Politics and the 2027 Election in Nigeria’, the public affair commentator and popular columnist, said the opposition today is inhabited by internal dissension, greed, and strategic miscalculation, adding that their failure to present a common front, rallying behind a single candidate may yet be their undoing.

He said though many Nigerians are angry at some policies of the government, anger is not enough to win an election, the opposition has to instrumentalise such perceptions into something that is electorally meaningful. He said he is yet to see any leading members of the opposition presenting a blueprint for turning the economy of the country around.

  Kperogi argued that the conditions for defeating the incumbent already exist in widespread frustration and failed economic policies, but opposition figures have yet to harness them effectively. “If Tinubu wins, it won’t be because he wins—it will be because the opposition loses,” he said, adding that unity around a single candidate, as seen in 2015, could change the outcome dramatically.

He said: “So if he wins, it’s not because he wins. It’s because the opposition loses. And there’s now possible deniability, even if he were to rig the election. But if all the opposition elements were to unite like they did, like the current government did in 2015, around one person, the possible deniability for him to say, well, this does not exist, it would be a massive landslide at this point. But because they don’t have that, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

He said Nigeria needs to adapt the democracy she wants to practice, noting that our presidential system, like the American that we have adopted, should grow organically out of our unique social historical experiences.

Kperogi said: “But we need to re-imagine the democracy we have right now and not be unimaginative copycats. We don’t need, for instance, a bicameral legislature. What are they doing? Senate, House of Reps and then, what do they do? They have become pitiful appendages of the executive. The state governments are even worse. So even the very spirit of democracy that we borrowed is not being obeyed. so we need a system that works.”

The don said the transformation  the country needs is being blocked by certain people who are invested in the system, who are part of it, and are ready to give up their lives to defend it.

He hoped the younger generation will  become impatient enough to organise themselves and take up the gauntlet to lead the movement for a different system that is sensitive to our peculiarities, to our historical, and sociological conditions. “We don’t need a bicameral legislature. We don’t need a winner-takes-all kind of politics.

Noting that Nigeria is a multi-ethnic nation, he reiterated a call for the constitutionalisation of power rotation between regions and within regions to reflect our own reality.

“Our politicians are already giving up right now because they are splintered. And how do you defeat someone who has the power of incumbency, has a huge war chest, and has the judiciary and electoral body in his pockets? The opposition, you appeal to the same slice of voters but you are splintered in three. Yet somehow you want to defeat him. It takes a lot of optimism to do that. The Nigerian politician can be some of the most cowardly people, the most yellow-bellied people.

He said it is self-destructive for those in power to stymie the opposition, saying we don’t want a situation where there’s an explosion because people don’t have an avenue to ventilate their angst and their disillusionment.

“You are even denying ordinary people the right to look forward to getting psychological comfort from an opposition party. Right now we don’t even know who is going to stand whether ADC is going to present a presidential candidate,” he said.