2027: PDP govs, Obi, NNPP To Form Alliance Against Tinubu
Moves by the opposition parties to unseat President Bola Tinubu in 2027 further gathered momentum on Thursday, with the Peoples Democratic Party governors, the 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi and the New Nigeria People’s Party planning an alliance to oust the President Bola Tinubu-led All Progressives Congress government.
The Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum and Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, confirmed the development after a closed-door meeting with Obi at the Bauchi Government House on Thursday.
He expressed his readiness to work with the former LP presidential candidate to give the country purposeful leadership.
The Bauchi meeting comes a few days after a former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, vowed to mobilise opposition figures towards unseating Tinubu in the 2027 election.
El-Rufai stated this on Monday after switching to the Social Democratic Party from the APC.
“I will focus on engaging with and persuading other opposition leaders and parties to join us and congregate under a unified democratic platform to challenge the APC in all elections and by-elections,” El-Rufai stated.
Speaking to journalists after the meeting with the ex-presidential candidate, the Bauchi governor said he and the PDP respected and admired Obi’s political style.
“We have a lot of respect and admiration for him because of his style of politics, his statesmanship, his versatility, his deep knowledge of the economy, and his understanding of the country. Of course, he also has a clear vision of where politics and politicians should be in terms of promoting good governance, impacting the people, and uniting the country,” he said.
Mohammed emphasised that it would be a delight to work with the former Anambra State governor, adding that they had earlier met on the way forward.
“It is a delight to work with him and listen to him. His deep knowledge, statistics and so on. And we in the PDP, as chairman of my colleagues, we have always admired him and we have always shown interest because, behind the scenes, I have been meeting with him.
“This is not the first time we met. In fact, I met him in Abuja, and I was going to meet him. But out of his normal humility, he decided to come here and we’ve discussed so many issues.
“We discussed step-by-step challenges like the challenges in Rivers State. And I feel highly appreciative of what he is doing as a leader of the opposition. Because whether we like it or not, he is the leader of the opposition now in Nigeria.”
Speaking on his plans, the governor noted, “I want to say at this level, not to make some of those doubting Thomases and curious minds to pre-empt what we are doing, that myself as a person, I am ready to work with Peter Obi.
“And to make sure we come together, close ranks, and bring good governance to the country. We will give a vibrant opposition, with knowledge, with timelines, with vision in such a manner that we would rescue and recover our country from the mediocre parading themselves as leaders.”
The former Federal Capital Territory minister said the time had come for the opposition to work together to achieve their objectives.
“Definitely, the time has come when we must step out and do things with sincerity and focus. I think our coming together is a message and the message is going to resonate because all our colleague governors are behind this kind of journey because it’s a transcendental one,” he said.
Speaking earlier, Obi explained that he was consulting with Mohammed “as a critical person in Nigerian politics.”
He said the situation in Nigeria necessitated him to visit the governor to discuss the future of the country, hinting that more such meetings would be held.
“So, it’s just a consultation and discussion meeting that will continue to go on as we talk about the future of this country. All of you are aware of where we are today, what is happening, our country and everything.
“And if we have to discuss that, we have to discuss issues happening in the North. Like I have told the governor today, that the North is a critical component if we are going to get it right in this country.”
Obi further stated, “When people talk about the criminality in Nigeria, especially when people talk about the North, I said no, there’s poverty in Nigeria. You have to deal with the issue of poverty. Until you solve poverty, you can’t solve criminality.”
He said the government needed to invest in critical areas such as education and agriculture to lift Nigerians out of poverty and address criminality.
“But as you can see in the political space now, we’re not discussing all this. What we are discussing in political space are budget padding, and sexual harassment, whereas our people are hungry.
We need to discuss hunger, we need to discuss poverty, we need to discuss education and health,” he added.
According to Obi, the Thursday meeting is a precursor to other meetings as we plan to engage further about the country’s future.
