Convener of the League of Northern Democrats, Umar Ardo, says the All Progressives Congress (APC) has a significant mobilisation advantage over opposition parties ahead of the 2027 general election, citing its control of state governments, political structures and electoral constituencies.

Speaking in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Tuesday, Ardo said the APC’s control of 33 governorship seats and the presence of its structures across the country could strengthen President Bola Tinubu’s re-election chances, despite widespread dissatisfaction with his administration.

He said the timing of the presidential election, two weeks before the governorship elections, could encourage governors seeking re-election or hoping to install successors to mobilise support for the president.

“But there is one aspect of the analysis of facts on the ground that the analysis seemed to have ignored, which is that the APC has 33 governors and in the north, all the states of the north, with the exception of Bauchi, are APC states.

“And the presidential election is coming two weeks before the governorship elections. The governors, either those who want to return for a second term or those who have their own successors in line, would want to do everything possible to ensure that they deliver the national because it is contingent to their winning at the state level in the following two weeks.

“So this factor, which is what they call the bandwagon effect, is very critical. And that aspect has not been taken care of by the analysis of ThisDay,” Ardo said.

He acknowledged widespread dissatisfaction with the Tinubu administration, particularly in the North, but argued that discontent alone would not guarantee an opposition victory without effective political mobilisation.

“Having said that, I will go ahead and say, yeah, in the North, as I believe in most parts of the country, there is a widespread dislike for the administration.

“Not necessarily for Tinubu as a person, because 99.999 per cent of Nigerians do not know Tinubu as a person. So what they dislike is Tinubu’s policies. And over the years, Tinubu has not been able to change those policies to align with what people perceive to be skewed towards his own territory.

“So the North that gave Tinubu 63.6 per cent of the total votes in 2023 is basically in revolt. But not wanting Tinubu does not mean that it’s going to get Tinubu away, because everything will depend on the mobilisation,” he said.

Ardo also identified gaps in the opposition’s electoral preparations, arguing that the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) lacked the extensive coverage of the APC in filling candidates for elective offices.

He said the APC had filled all its available offices, while the ADC had not filled some legislative positions and the NDC had failed to field governorship candidates in several states.

“APC has all the offices in the country filled up, all, 100 per cent. ADC did not have 100 per cent. Maybe ADC, I don’t have the facts of the ADC, but I know that there are members of the House of Assemblies, House of Representatives, and probably one or two senators that ADC did not fill.

“And with regards to NDC, NDC did not fill governorship in 11 states of the federation. And after the Supreme Court judgment, INEC added three more states to the 11 that NDC did not fill, which are Kano, Kaduna and Nasarawa, making NDC have no governorship candidates in 14 states.

“And I have also checked, and I saw NDC did not fill in the National Assembly 140 offices, constituencies.

“Now, this is a very, very serious lapse on the part of the NDC. So if you say it is a three-way race, yes, it is a three-way race, but the NDC is lagging far behind, where you have over one-third of National Assembly members and then governorship offices that you have not filled. You are going to have a big problem in winning the elections,” Ardo said.

On the factors that shaped the 2023 presidential election, Ardo said Tinubu benefited from the APC’s position as the ruling party and what he described as former President Muhammadu Buhari’s eventual support for the APC candidate.

He also attributed former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s performance in the North to the political structures of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which controlled several northern states at the time.

Ardo alleged that Buhari’s associates had initially supported Atiku before the former president eventually backed Tinubu towards the end of the campaign.

“And have even said, and there are facts supporting this assumption, that Buhari, his cabal around him had even supported Atiku and funded Atiku in 2023. It was towards the end of it that, having seen all the facts on the ground, Buhari then suddenly made a political volte-face, and then came to support Tinubu, and then went on the rallies to say vote for Tinubu.

“Now, this last-minute act of Buhari to say vote for Tinubu had substantially helped Tinubu in getting the votes that he got in 2023,” he said.

Ardo added that Atiku’s current position outside the PDP, alongside the party’s weakened structure, had changed the political circumstances ahead of the next election.

“The situation is dramatically different now. PDP, there is not one single state that is PDP today in the country. And Atiku is not contesting under the PDP, and he’s contesting under ADC.

“And there is not one single state that is under ADC regime,” he said.

He argued that the APC had the organisational capacity and political networks required to mobilise voters, while the opposition had yet to demonstrate a comparable level of preparedness.

“There are a lot of people across the country that don’t want the regime, yes. And the ADC is doing everything possible to whip up sentiments of North, of Muslim, of Hausa-Fulani, and so on and so forth.

“These facts are no longer in support of the ADC candidate. And APC is on the ground, and they are determined to do everything that they have to mobilise.

“They have the capacity, they have the ability, and they have those on the ground that will mobilise, which ADC seems to have lacked up to now,” Ardo said.

On concerns that some APC governors could withhold support for Tinubu because of political disagreements involving the president and Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesom Wike, Ardo dismissed the suggestion that Wike’s proposed political alliances posed a significant threat to the ruling party.

“The rainbow coalition of Wike is more on the air than on the ground,” he said.

Ardo described Wike’s activities as political grandstanding, arguing that the minister was primarily interested in securing Rivers State and possibly the Federal Capital Territory for the president.

“So Wike talks a lot, and he is grandstanding. The rainbow coalition is not on the ground. Wike is more interested in bringing back his state of Rivers State, and then probably bringing the FCT to the president.

“So rainbow coalition, where are the rainbow coalition, which governors are in the rainbow coalition that Wike is talking about? We don’t know them,” he said.

Responding to suggestions that governors in states such as Ebonyi and Kwara could be affected by Wike’s political arrangements, Ardo said Ebonyi Governor Francis Nwifuru faced a difficult political situation because of the likely strength of Labour Party’s Peter Obi in the South-East.

He also argued that Kwara’s political alignment did not necessarily indicate a breakdown in support for Tinubu, pointing to the presence of former Senate President Bukola Saraki at the inauguration of the president’s election council.

Ardo said many governors had joined the APC voluntarily after the PDP’s internal crisis weakened the opposition party, adding that they had secured favourable political arrangements within the ruling party.

“These politicians, these governors, most of them, and I have it on good authority, most of them went into APC without being cajoled, without being invited. They volunteered to go into APC. Why?

“Because the critical, the strongest opposition political party was fractured, which was PDP. It was fractured. The strongest part of PDP went to a court and then did not get judgment on the side of the court, from the court.

“So what do you expect them to do? They do not want to go into ADC. Why? Because the leader of the ADC had himself left the PDP even before the fracture became open. So they all moved into the APC, and they got a better bargain, got a good deal with the APC,” he said.

Ardo concluded that although Nigerians appeared to desire political change, dissatisfaction with the incumbent administration would not automatically translate into an opposition victory without effective organisation and grassroots mobilisation.

“So we really have to think deeply, to think that, yes, Tinubu and his administration, they are not popular in the country. 

Nigerians seem to want to have a change, but you cannot have a change just because you want change. You have to work for it, and most of those opposition, they are not seen working for it, as far as I can see,” he said.

Boluwatife Enome 

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