Opposition Parties and 2027: Time to Stop Fighting Shadows

From Jos, the picture is clear. The 2027 election is no longer a distant conversation. It is here. And the opposition still looks like a house with too many landlords and not enough tenants who actually live in the rooms.

The Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) and the African Democratic Congress (ADC) are currently carrying the heaviest load. Peter Obi’s NDC has kept the energy of 2023 alive and is showing real organisational muscle. The ADC, now the chosen platform of a significant coalition of heavyweights, has the structures and the national reach that many smaller parties envy. Both are pulling serious weight. That much is not in dispute.

But weight alone does not win elections in Nigeria. The Social Democratic Party (SDP), the African Action Congress (AAC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), at one time the biggest political party in Nigeria, still matter. The SDP has steady presence and a candidate in Adewole Adebayo who refuses to disappear into the background. The AAC, under Omoyele Sowore, continues to speak a language of radical accountability that resonates with a section of the youth and the left. Ignoring or dismissing them is not strategy; it is arrogance. Every serious opposition conversation must leave room for these voices, not treat them as afterthoughts.

The real problem is still the same one that cost the opposition dearly in 2023: too many parallel ambitions and not enough shared discipline. Talks about a single candidate and a four-year transition charter keep coming up. Good. But talk is cheap in Abuja. What voters in Plateau, Benue, and across the Middle Belt want to see is whether the big parties can stop treating smaller ones as disposable and whether the big personalities can put ego aside long enough to present one coherent alternative.

From here in Jos, the way forward is straightforward. First, the NDC and ADC must recognise that their current strength becomes wasted if they cannot bring the SDP, AAC, and others into a working arrangement that respects everyone’s contribution. Second, the opposition must speak to the daily pain–insecurity, food prices, collapsing small businesses–with concrete plans, not recycled anger. Third, internal democracy must stop being a slogan. Parties that cannot manage their own primaries cleanly will not convince Nigerians they can manage the country.

2027 will not reward the loudest critic of the APC. It will reward the side that looks ready to govern. The NDC and ADC are already carrying significant weight. The SDP and AAC still have roles that should not be undermined. The question is whether all of them can finally act like they understand the same calendar. Time is short. The voters are watching.