• Plot Benue, Ebonyi, Enugu, Gombe, Kwara, Taraba, return

As the 2027 presidential electioneering gathers momentum, there are indications that some leaders of the embattled opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who are supporting President Bola Tinubu’s second-term aspiration, are rallying six states in readiness for the 2031 election cycle.

Going by the electoral calculations of the PDP leaders, Benue, Ebonyi, Enugu, Gombe, Kwara and Taraba would become PDP states after the February 8, 2027 gubernatorial poll.

Some of these former party leaders, including former Senate President Bukola Saraki, Senator Danjuma Goje, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and Dr Samuel Ortom, are said to be working to revive PDP structures in the six states as a strategic foundation towards rebuilding the former ruling party.

Searches by The Guardian showed that Goje, who recently resigned from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Gombe State, is putting final touches on his planned return to the PDP, on which platform he served as governor for two terms.

Based on the understanding with influential members of the presidency, Mike Aondoakaa (Benue); Ifeanyi Odii (Ebonyi); Uche Nnaji (Enugu); Prof. Isa Pantami (Gombe); Bolakale Kawu (Kwara) and Senator Emmanuel Bwacha (Taraba) were supported to emerge as gubernatorial candidates.

A former governor of one of the northern states confided in The Guardian that PDP leaders have not forgotten the role the party played in their political elevation, stressing that the idea of supporting President Tinubu’s second term is part of a nation-building effort.

After political estrangement from his political godson, Governor Inuwa Yahaya, Goje was peeved by the denial of his return ticket, as well as Governor Yahaya’s unilateral decision to sideline aboriginal APC members and support Dr Jamil Gwamna for the party’s governorship ticket in the state.

It was also gathered that, preparatory to his eventual return to the PDP, Goje has been holding a series of preliminary defection meetings with party leaders, including Senator Ibrahim Dankwambo, who defied the Muhammadu Buhari Tsunami in 2015 to retain the state under PDP control.

Goje’s resignation from APC came barely one week after another incumbent Senator, Salihu Mustpha, returned to the PDP, alleging that as a founding member of the party, he cannot remain with the current APC leadership in Kwara State, who he said have scant regard for the principles of internal democracy and collective unity upon which the party was founded.

The senator disclosed that he was teaming up with other like minds, including Senate President Saraki, in a Rainbow Coalition to support President Tinubu’s second term in office and the rebuilding of the PDP as the main opposition.

It could be recalled that the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and immediate past Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, who founded the Rainbow Coalition in Rivers State for President Tinubu’s second-term bid, decided to expand the coalition and accommodate other national political leaders as a building block for a virile opposition party.