•The election that could kill Nigeria’s old political formula

By Luminous Janamike

As zoning, ethnicity and religious balancing come under pressure, presidential hopefuls increasingly search for competence over vote-delivering power brokers

For months, Nigeria’s opposition politicians have spoken the language of coalition, unity and rescue.

They gathered in Ibadan and issued declarations. They warned against the emergence of a dominant-party system. They promised cooperation against the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.

Yet as the January 16, 2027 presidential election draws closer, a different reality is emerging. Instead of convergence, the opposition is fragmenting.

Instead of one challenger, multiple contenders are positioning for the same office. Instead of a united anti-incumbency platform, several parties are preparing separate presidential campaigns.

At the centre of this contradiction lies an even bigger political shift. For decades, Nigerian presidential politics operated on a familiar formula built around zoning, ethnicity, religion and regional balancing. 

Winning tickets were carefully assembled to satisfy geographical and demographic expectations.

Political calculations often revolved around who could ‘deliver’ votes rather than who could help govern.

But worsening economic hardship, rising insecurity, youth frustration and growing disillusionment with political elites are beginning to challenge those assumptions.

Inside several political camps, strategists are quietly asking whether the old formula still works.

The question is no longer simply which region should produce a running mate. 

Increasingly, the debate is whether competence may now matter more than geography. And that debate could define the battle for Aso Rock in 2027.

The Old Formula is Failing.

 When opposition leaders gathered in Ibadan last month and unveiled what became known as the ‘Ibadan Declaration,’ the mood was almost historic.

The gathering brought together an uneasy coalition of politicians united by one common fear, that the APC’s expanding dominance could gradually suffocate competitive politics in Nigeria.

The language was dramatic. Participants warned about an emerging ‘one-party state.’ They promised cooperation. They spoke about rescuing democracy.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar later amplified those concerns, warning that Nigeria risked sliding into dangerous political dominance if opposition forces failed to resist APC expansion.

But beneath the public choreography, familiar tensions were already brewing. Peter Obi retained his independent national appeal and youthful support base. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso still controlled a fiercely loyal northern political structure.

Rotimi Amaechi remained ambitious. Atiku himself was unwilling to abandon his long-standing presidential quest.

An opposition insider familiar with coalition discussions told Sunday Vanguard: “Everybody agreed APC is vulnerable because of hardship. The problem is that everybody also believes he should be the one to benefit from APC’s weakness.”

That contradiction soon exploded into the open. The coalition talks began fraying. Obi and Kwankwaso drifted away from aspects of the evolving arrangement. Inside ADC, Amaechi openly rejected the outcome of the party’s presidential primary after Atiku secured the ticket.

Suddenly, the opposition’s central dilemma became painfully obvious. Unity was emotionally attractive. But ambition remained politically stronger.

The Ghost of 2015

 Every serious opposition conversation eventually returns to 2015, the year disparate opposition forces buried personal ambition long enough to defeat an incumbent president for the first time in Nigeria’s democratic history.

But many analysts now believe the atmosphere is fundamentally different. In 2015, there was a single dominant opposition vehicle. Today, there are multiple ambitious centres of power.

 Cheta Nwanze, lead partner at SBM Intelligence, has repeatedly argued that fragmentation remains the opposition’s biggest weakness because APC continues to benefit whenever anti-incumbent votes scatter across several parties. That fear now hangs over virtually every coalition discussion.

A New Formula is Emerging Beyond Tribe, Religion and Geography

 Quietly, almost reluctantly, a new argument is beginning to reshape elite political calculations:  competence, governance, economic management, and policy capacity.

For decades, Nigerian vice-presidential selections largely functioned as political compensation arrangements.

Running mates were chosen primarily because they could ‘deliver’ regions, religious blocs or political structures.

Now, sections of the political class are beginning to ask a more uncomfortable question: What if Nigerians no longer care as much about symbolic balancing as politicians assume?

The country’s worsening economic realities are driving that shift. Food prices have become unbearable for many households. Unemployment remains stubbornly high. The naira crisis has battered businesses. Insecurity continues to haunt large parts of the country.

Increasingly, survival economics is overtaking identity politics.

Peter Obi has repeatedly framed leadership as a competence issue rather than an ethnic calculation.

“We cannot hire people who will give us excuses again. The time for excuses has passed. If you cannot work now, go home,” Obi declared recently while criticising the Tinubu administration.

On Workers’ Day earlier this month, Obi again urged Nigerians to demand “leadership built on competence, character, capacity, credibility and compassion rather than reward ethnic division and bad governance.”

Even former President Olusegun Obasanjo has repeatedly returned to the issue of leadership quality.

“Appointment at the leadership level should be based on competence, knowledge and experience; any other consideration will be sub-optimal,” the former president once argued while discussing governance and leadership standards.

Inside Atiku’s camp, this argument is reportedly influencing vice-presidential discussions.

A source involved in consultations around possible ticket configurations told Sunday Vanguard: “The thinking now is different. Some people are asking whether Nigeria needs another political deal or an actual governing team. Hunger is changing political psychology.”

That calculation partly explains growing interest in technocrats and governance-oriented figures rather than traditional political heavyweights.

Why South May No Longer Guarantee Votes

 One of the least discussed but most consequential calculations shaping the 2027 race concerns the changing political value of the South.

For years, vice-presidential selections were heavily influenced by assumptions about regional vote delivery. The logic appeared straightforward: pick a prominent figure from a strategic zone and electoral support would follow.

That assumption is increasingly under scrutiny. Several political strategists now privately believe that parts of the South-East have become politically consolidated around Peter Obi’s movement in ways that make traditional elite endorsements less influential than before.

The South-South presents a different challenge. Once viewed as a relatively predictable bloc, the region has become more fragmented, with competing loyalties, shifting alliances and multiple centres of influence.

A strategist involved in opposition calculations told Sunday Vanguard that one of the questions increasingly shaping internal discussions is whether a running mate from a particular region still adds significant electoral value if that region already appears firmly aligned with another candidate.

That line of thinking is quietly reshaping vice-presidential conversations.

Rather than searching exclusively for regional vote merchants, some camps are increasingly discussing competence, governance experience and economic credibility.

The implication is profound. If regions are becoming harder to deliver through elite bargains, then the old political marketplace built around geographical compensation may be losing value.

For many veteran politicians, that is an uncomfortable possibility.

The Calculation inside 

the Opposition

 Perhaps nowhere is this changing thinking more visible than in conversations surrounding possible vice-presidential choices.

Traditionally, opposition strategists would focus primarily on electoral geography. Which state can he deliver? Which region can she unlock? Which bloc can they mobilise?

But some political insiders say those questions are increasingly competing with a different set of considerations. Can this person help manage the economy? Can this person drive reforms? Can this person reassure investors? Can this person function as a genuine governing partner?

One source familiar with ongoing consultations put it this way: “People assume every vice-presidential discussion is about votes. That’s no longer entirely true. There is a growing recognition that whoever wins in 2027 will inherit a very difficult country. Some camps are thinking beyond election day.”

 Nigeria now stands awkwardly between two competing political realities. One is still governed by the old assumptions of zoning, religion, ethnicity and elite bargaining.

The other is being shaped by hardship, youth frustration and growing demands for competent governance. Neither side has fully won. Not yet.

The old formula remains powerful. But for the first time in decades, its supremacy is being openly questioned inside the same political class that once depended on it. That alone makes 2027 different.

The deeper irony is that politicians are beginning to discuss competence precisely because the old certainties no longer appear certain.

Yet as campaigns intensify and power negotiations deepen, will those same politicians truly abandon the ethnic and regional arithmetic that has shaped Nigerian elections for decades?

Or are they merely speaking the language of competence until the real battle for power begins? That question now hangs over every coalition meeting, every vice-presidential calculation and every presidential ambition.

And perhaps it is the question that will ultimately determine whether 2027 becomes the election that killed Nigeria’s old political formula, or merely the election that briefly frightened it.

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