• Key leaders, presidential hopefuls stay away from G100 summit
• SDP chairman warns personal ambitions may derail alliance
• NDC says Atiku, Obi absence won’t derail opposition alliance
• ADC warns Obi’s subsidy stance may threaten coalition
• Turaki-led PDP faction endorses G100 opposition platform

Strong indications emerged yesterday that the much-touted coalition of opposition parties may be heading for another false start, as key political leaders and presidential hopefuls stayed away from a summit convened to forge a common front ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

The summit, organised by the G100 group, brought together leaders and stakeholders of six opposition parties — the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Allied Peoples Movement (APM), National Democratic Congress (NDC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) — to develop a framework for cooperation and coordination ahead of the election.

However, the absence of several major actors, including some leading figures associated with the coalition project, has raised fresh questions about the alliance’s seriousness and its prospects for producing a unified platform capable of challenging the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

National Chairman of the SDP, Sadiq Umar Abubakar Gombe, described the development as a bad omen for the coalition.

He questioned what could realistically emerge from the summit when the ADC presidential candidate and his running mate, as well as the party’s national chairman, national secretary and national legal adviser, were absent.

Gombe also pointed to the absence of the NDC presidential candidate and his running mate, while the party’s national chairman, Seriake Dickson, arrived late.

The SDP chairman said the development suggested that personal ambitions and political egos could undermine efforts to build a united opposition.

He argued that opposition parties needed to reason together in the interest of the country, but noted that reaching an agreement would be difficult because most of the parties had already conducted their primaries and produced presidential candidates.

“Talking about one candidate stepping down for another may be difficult,” he said, adding that agreeing on a single political platform for the 2027 election would also present a major challenge.

According to him, several other issues would have to be resolved, including the sharing of political structures, leadership and other interests, while the timing of the discussions had further complicated matters.

Despite his reservations, Gombe said the possibility of cooperation among some serious-minded opposition parties had not been completely foreclosed.

He cited the recent Osun State governorship election as evidence that voters could still resist political pressure and exercise their choices despite the deployment of federal power.

NDC: Atiku, Obi’s absence won’t derail opposition alliance
THIS came as the Nigeria Democratic Congress said opposition parties can still forge a united front ahead of the 2027 general elections despite the absence of Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi from the G100 summit.

A chieftain of the NDC and the party’s Lagos Central senatorial candidate, Ladipo Johnson, stated this yesterday while speaking on Frontline, a current affairs programme on Eagle 102.5 FM, Ilese-Ijebu.

Johnson said the absence of Atiku and Obi should not be interpreted as a lack of interest in the proposed alliance, stressing that political parties had an important role to play in the ongoing negotiations.

“We have to keep aspiring, but I wouldn’t say that the absence of the gentlemen means that it was not a serious occasion,” he said.

He said opposition parties needed to reach an understanding before presidential candidates became fully involved in the process.

“You understand that the party has an important role in party politics and usually at this stage of such negotiations, it is the party that really dots the I’s and crosses the T’s,” Johnson said.

According to him, opposition parties would be stronger if they worked together to provide Nigerians with a credible alternative to the ruling All Progressives Congress.

“One thing is clear, the stronger we are, the better for us. We have to come together to make sure that we give Nigerians an opportunity, an alternative that is credible and strong,” he said.

Johnson said the proposed alliance should go beyond defeating the APC, adding that it should seek to restore public confidence and address the country’s economic and security challenges.

“That is strong enough to give Nigerians more confidence. I’m not saying we’re not strong as individual parties. We will give them more confidence that hope and help is on the way to get Nigerians away from the economic doldrums they have faced in recent times and the insecurities,” he said.

He said any opposition alliance should be driven by the desire to provide Nigerians with a better alternative rather than simply removing President Bola Tinubu or the APC from power.

“It is not just about getting rid of President Bola Tinubu or the APC. For us, in the NDC, especially my two principals,
Peter Obi and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, it is about presenting something better,” he said.

Why Nigeria’s opposition alliances rarely endure
NIGERIA’S political history offers a sobering warning about the difficulty of sustaining opposition alliances.

Since the return to democratic rule in 1999, opposition parties have made several attempts to unite against dominant political forces. Most collapsed because the parties and their leaders could not resolve questions of leadership, presidential candidacy, structures and interests.

One of the earliest major arrangements came in 1999 when the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and All Peoples Party (APP) reached an understanding to avoid splitting the opposition vote. The APP stepped aside for Olu Falae of the AD in the South-West, while the AD did not field a presidential candidate against Muhammadu Buhari in the North.

Although Olusegun Obasanjo of the PDP won the election, the arrangement demonstrated the potential of regional cooperation. However, it remained an electoral pact rather than a durable political merger.

The failure of subsequent alliances reinforced the problem.

In 2003, opposition parties including the United Nigeria People’s Party (UNPP), AD and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) failed to produce a united presidential front, allowing Obasanjo to win convincingly.

Ahead of the 2007 election, the Action Congress, ANPP and APGA explored another alliance, but disagreements among leading figures, including Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar, over presidential leadership weakened the arrangement.

A similar problem affected the proposed CPC-ACN merger before the 2011 election. The parties failed to resolve leadership and presidential candidacy issues, resulting in Buhari and the eventual winner, Goodluck Jonathan, contesting separately. The PDP retained power.

The lesson was clear: opposition coalitions cannot survive merely on negotiations among political leaders. The fundamental question of who leads must be resolved early enough.

The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) provided another example in 2018. About 39 opposition parties came together with the stated objective of defeating President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019. Atiku eventually emerged as the coalition’s presidential candidate.

However, the alliance struggled to translate its numerical strength into an effective electoral machine. Many of the participating parties lacked substantial grassroots structures, while ideological differences, leadership disputes and competing interests persisted.

The 2023 election introduced a different model through Peter Obi’s emergence as the Labour Party presidential candidate. His youth-driven movement demonstrated how a strong candidate, social media mobilisation and widespread voter dissatisfaction could disrupt the traditional APC-PDP contest.

Although Obi did not win the presidency, his performance showed that a political movement could challenge established parties without possessing their traditional network of governors and political structures.

Since 2023, efforts to create another opposition coalition have intensified, eventually producing the broader movement around the ADC and involving political actors from the PDP, SDP, Labour Party, NNPP and other groups.

The G100 initiative is the latest attempt to provide structure and coherence to the search for a formidable opposition platform.

Opposition coalition and the challenge of choosing a leader
THE emerging coalition must resolve several fundamental questions: Who will emerge as its presidential candidate? Which interests will control its structure? How will it be financed? Can it establish effective structures across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory? What ideology or policy platform will distinguish it from the APC?

More importantly, can presidential aspirants and competing political blocs subordinate their individual ambitions to a common objective?

The APC’s emergence in 2013 and its victory over the incumbent PDP in 2015 provide perhaps the clearest evidence that a broad and disciplined opposition alliance can succeed. But that merger went beyond an electoral pact. It created a new political platform with national structures and brought together major political forces around a common objective.

The current coalition faces a more complicated environment, with several heavyweight political figures and parties already nursing established ambitions.

An agreement to defeat the APC may provide an initial rallying point, but anti-incumbency alone may not sustain the alliance through the campaign and election.

For the G100-led coalition, therefore, Nigeria’s political history provides both an opportunity and a warning. The opportunity is that the APC has shown that a sufficiently broad, disciplined and strategically organised opposition alliance can defeat a ruling party.

The warning is that most previous attempts collapsed because their leaders could not agree on power, lacked the necessary structures or failed to offer voters a convincing alternative.

As the 2027 contest gathers momentum, the coalition’s fate may ultimately depend on whether its leaders can answer the question that has defeated many of their predecessors: Can Nigeria’s opposition agree not only on who to remove, but also on who should lead and what should replace the incumbent government?

Obi’s subsidy stance may threaten opposition coalition, says ADC
THE National Publicity Secretary of the African Democratic Congress, Bolaji Abdullahi, has warned that Peter Obi’s position on petrol subsidy could threaten the proposed coalition of opposition parties ahead of the 2027 elections.

Abdullahi spoke yesterday during an appearance on Daybreak, an AriseTV programme, while explaining why Atiku Abubakar, the ADC presidential candidate, was absent from the G100 opposition summit in Abuja on Monday.

Abdullahi said the disagreement over subsidy policy could undermine the basis of the renewed coalition discussions.

“That’s something the promoters of this coalition will have to address. If Peter Obi doesn’t believe in the return of subsidy while we do, then what would be the basis for a merger?” he asked.

He said the ADC was prepared to cooperate with parties that shared its position on subsidy.

“For us, it’s non-negotiable. Our economists are examining the numbers in detail, and we’re convinced this is something we should pursue,” Abdullahi said.

He said the ADC firmly supported the G100 coalition initiative but stressed that the party’s participation did not mean it was incapable of defeating the APC independently.

“I agree with the objective that when opposition parties come together, they stand a better chance. But for us in the ADC, this conversation is not dependent on producing a single presidential candidate,” he said.

“We believe we can defeat President Bola Tinubu in 2027 on our own. If we’re able to negotiate this cooperation, it simply makes the job easier.”

On Atiku’s absence from the summit, Abdullahi said the meeting was primarily focused on cooperation among political parties rather than individual presidential candidates.

“The summit, the way we understand it, is more about conversations between political parties than between candidates. It’s about exploring opportunities for cooperation among political parties,” he said.

“So it’s not consequential that Atiku Abubakar was not present. I was there, the party was highly represented. We had about four vice-chairmen at the G100 summit. ADC was fully represented and participated in the process.”

PDP faction joins G-100 opposition coalition ahead of 2027
THE Tanimu Turaki-led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party has joined the G100 opposition group in its bid to defeat the All Progressives Congress in the 2027 general elections.

National Publicity Secretary of the Interim National Working Committee of the Turaki-led faction, Ini Ememobong, said the decision to join the group was driven by what he described as the “wailing of Nigerians”.

In a statement yesterday, Ememobong said the faction had endorsed the G100 process of creating an all-opposition platform ahead of the 2027 elections.

He said the decision was informed by the “wailings of Nigerians groaning under the repressive Bola Tinubu APC-led Federal Government” and the need to work with other political forces to “search for the country’s redemption”.

According to him, the move was consistent with the faction’s earlier position on working with “like-minded political parties and organisations desirous of salvaging the country from the many vices orchestrated by the ruling APC”.

He added that the faction’s participation in the first meeting of the G100 on August 31, 2026, demonstrated its readiness to contribute to the establishment of an all-opposition platform capable of taking power from the APC and rebuilding the country.

Ememobong said: “The Peoples Democratic Party, @OfficialPDPNig, as a responsible opposition party, has endorsed the G100 (a group of 100 opposition stalwarts) driven process of creating an all-opposition front to challenge the incumbent APC candidate in the 2027 general elections.”

He said the faction was prepared to work with other opposition forces “in the quest for an all-opposition platform that will take power from the incumbent and rebuild Nigeria for the good of all Nigerians.”