By Aliyu Mohammed Idris, PhD,

There is a particular kind of political optimism that refuses to be corrected by evidence. It is the optimism that survives a catastrophic electoral performance, reinterprets the catastrophe as a near-miss, constructs an elaborate narrative of stolen victory to explain away the margin of defeat, and then proceeds to the next electoral cycle with essentially the same strategic assumptions, the same candidate, and the same fundamental misreading of the political landscape that produced the catastrophe in the first place. It is the optimism currently driving Peter Obi’s 2027 presidential campaign under the banner of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, and it is an optimism that the verified electoral arithmetic of the 2023 presidential election exposes, with the cold and irrefutable precision of numbers, as a strategy built on a foundation that the facts of Nigerian political geography simply do not support.
The numbers are not in dispute. They are drawn from the official records of the Independent National Electoral Commission, verified by multiple fact-checking organisations, and confirmed by the Africa Report’s real-time election coverage. Peter Obi secured 43.0 percent of votes from the South in the 2023 presidential election and only 14.2 percent from the North. That 14.2 percent figure is not merely a disappointing performance or a correctable underachievement. It is a structural indictment of a campaign that presented itself as a genuinely national movement while failing to build anything resembling a genuinely national electoral coalition. In Gombe State, he polled 26,160 votes against Atiku’s 319,123. In Sokoto, he managed 6,568 votes. In state after state across the North-West and North-East, his performance was so marginal as to be politically irrelevant in the context of a contest governed by the constitutional requirement that a winning presidential candidate must secure not merely the most votes nationally but at least 25 percent of votes cast in no fewer than 24 of Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The constitutional arithmetic is the most devastating dimension of this electoral reality. Nigeria’s presidential election is not won by national popular vote alone. It is won by a combination of national plurality and geographic distribution, a system specifically designed to ensure that the president of a federation as diverse as Nigeria cannot be elected on the strength of a single region’s enthusiasm, however overwhelming that enthusiasm may be. In 2023, Peter Obi won the South-East with majorities that were, in several states, greater than 90 percent of votes cast. In Anambra, his home state, he polled 584,621 votes. In Enugu, he secured 91.42 percent of total votes cast. These were extraordinary performances. But they were extraordinary performances in a geographically concentrated region that, however impressive its margins, could not on its own satisfy the constitutional distribution requirement that makes a presidential victory mathematically possible. The 25 percent threshold in 24 states is not a formality. It is the architectural expression of Nigeria’s federal character, and Peter Obi’s 2023 campaign failed to meet it not because of electoral malpractice alone, as his supporters persistently claim, but because the underlying electoral coalition he had built was geographically insufficient to satisfy a constitutional standard that any serious presidential campaign must plan from the outset to meet.
The question for 2027 is whether the Obi-Kwankwaso ticket has credibly addressed this structural deficiency. The honest answer, when examined against the current political landscape of Northern Nigeria, is that it has not, and that the specific political assets that Kwankwaso was expected to bring to the ticket have been substantially eroded by the events of the past two years in ways that the NDC’s campaign strategists appear to be either unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge. Kwankwaso’s political capital in the North was always most concentrated in Kano State, where the Kwankwasiyya movement had built a formidable grassroots organisation over more than a decade of investment in community mobilisation, welfare distribution, and political education. That organisation delivered Kano State for the NNPP in the 2023 governorship election, producing the administration of Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, the man who was supposed to be the institutional expression of Kwankwaso’s continued relevance as a northern political force.
But Governor Yusuf is no longer Kwankwaso’s man. He decamped to the APC earlier in 2026, taking with him the 36 members of the Kano State House of Assembly and all 44 local government chairmen, in one of the most consequential political defections in Kano’s recent history. The Kwankwasiyya movement, which was already showing signs of internal stress before the defection, has been structurally fractured by the departure of the governor it helped elect. The political organisation that Kwankwaso was counting on to deliver Kano’s substantial electoral weight to the Obi-Kwankwaso ticket in 2027 is now a significantly diminished force operating in a state whose government, whose legislative machinery, and whose local government structures are all aligned with the APC and the federal administration of President Tinubu. Beyond Kano, Kwankwaso’s influence across the wider North-West and North-East was always more aspirational than organisational, more a function of his national profile than of the kind of ward-level mobilisation infrastructure that actually moves voters on election day.
The one-term promise that Obi has repeatedly deployed as a tool for managing northern political anxieties about southern presidential dominance adds a further layer of analytical complexity to the electoral arithmetic question, because it highlights the extent to which the NDC’s northern strategy is built on political arrangements rather than genuine political support. A presidential candidate who needs to offer a constitutionally unenforceable promise to serve only a single term in order to persuade northern stakeholders to consider supporting him is a candidate who is acknowledging, in the most direct possible terms, that the northern support he is seeking is contingent rather than organic, transactional rather than ideological, and dependent on political calculations that could shift dramatically between now and the February 2027 polling date. Political opinion across Northern Nigeria, as Vanguard’s reporting confirmed, remains sharply divided over the one-term promise, with many stakeholders describing it as politically strategic but lacking enforceable guarantees. That assessment is correct. And a northern electoral strategy built on a promise that cannot be legally enforced, delivered by a candidate whose history of party-switching has demonstrated a consistent willingness to abandon commitments when political conditions become inconvenient, is a strategy whose foundations deserve the most rigorous scrutiny.
The electoral mathematics of 2027 are not fundamentally different from those of 2023. The constitutional threshold is the same. The geographic distribution requirement is the same. The northern political landscape, far from having been transformed in Obi’s favour by the Kwankwaso alliance, has in critical respects shifted against him, with Kano State, the single most important northern electoral prize, now firmly within the APC’s political architecture following Governor Yusuf’s defection. The 14.2 percent that Obi secured from the North in 2023 was not a floor from which he will inevitably rise with the right running mate and the right messaging. It was a ceiling built by a combination of the IPOB credibility deficit, the geographic concentration of the Obidient Movement’s energy, the constitutional distribution requirement’s structural demands, and the deep cultural and political instincts of northern voters whose relationship with presidential candidates is governed by a set of expectations and requirements that Peter Obi’s campaign, in 2023 and so far in 2027, has not demonstrated the capacity or the willingness to genuinely meet. The numbers said it clearly in 2023. They are saying it still. The question is whether anyone in the NDC’s campaign structure is listening

By Abba Anwar

The possibility of life without challenges is zero point zero. As His Excellency, Deputy Senate President, Barau I Jibrin, PhD, CFR, rightly observed and amplified.

It was during an interactive session, that was held at Convocation Arena of Bayero University, Kano, Tuesday, with the students he sponsored under Barau I. Jibrin Foundation, to study at the Study Centres of Federal University Dutsin-Ma (FUDMA), in six local governments from his constituency, Kano North. These are Bichi, Dambatta, Dawakin Tofa, Gabasawa, Gwarzo and Tofa.

The session was attended by the management of the university, FUDMA, under the leadership of the Vice Chancellor, Prof MK Usman, the students of the Centres and their parents. It was meant to discuss the relocation of the affected students from these Study Centres, back to the main campus of the university, in Dutsin-Ma.

According to the Vice Chancellor Prof Usman, the directive was from the federal ministry of education, that these Centres must relocate to the main campus of the university. Meaning, all students would relocate from their respective local governments here in Kano and move to Dutsin-Ma town of Katsina state.

During the session, after prolonged discussion of the situation on ground, by the Vice Chancellor, DSP urged all the affected students to take this as part of the challenges of life. He was live virtually during the session.

He narrated how he intervened between the university and Minister of State, Education, on how the situation could be handled without the relocation. Believing that relocation could be disturbing to students. As many students complained. Citing extra spendings and insecurity as their main reasons against the new development.

DSP Barau narrated in details, how he requested for another option instead of the relocation. Explaining that, the Minister said, there was no room for any arrangement different from the relocation exercise.

One needs to see the humane face of the DSP when he was making his remarks to the students. When he realised that, the faces of the students were requesting for reversal of the new policy, he instantly changed their mood, as he promised to take care of their transportation, keep-up allowances and adequate provision of security escorts for their trips, to and fro.

Apart from all other responsibilities, to encourage them face their studies with all seriousness and commitment. A standing ovation greeted the Senator, during and after his remarks. Human capital development, as he believes and amplified at the session, is the mainstay of any meaningful development. Reason why he believes in investing in the education of his people. For the development of the society.

Fear of living in new environment, due to accommodation problem was allayed, as the Vice Chancellor promised that, all the relocated students would be accommodated freely in the university. It also appears here, the issue of accommodation, that both DSP Foundation and the university would work hand in hand to make the students comfortable.

A standing ovation greeted the entire hall when DSP said, “I will arrange for your transportation to and from Federal University Dutsin-Ma. I will give you resources to help you stay there comfortably. So also security will be provided.”

Among the students who were enrolled in the FUDMA’s Study Centres, some are in their final year, some in level Three, and so on and so forth. The Vice Chancellor assured all the students that, quality would not be compromise. Praising the Deputy Senate President for his unrelenting effort for the betterment of the students.

Even after the interactive session, there were handful few, who still insisted that, they would rather seek for transfer to other institutions, citing family issues as their main reason for rejecting the relocation policy. They are mostly married women. But it appears there could be other arrangement for this category of students.

Many parents who attended the interactive session, commended Senator Barau for being that magnanimous and caring for their wards. Ensuring that, they would aid in the successful relocation exercise.

Highlighting that there were many people out there who could not have similar opportunity to further their studies. Believing that, DSP’s interest in the development of his people, was what made the intervention successful from day one.

Many students and their parents, pointed out that, they were privy to leaked information that, some unpatriotic elements from Kano North were trying to politicize the new development. They further challenged that, the development was not DSP’s making or design. As a result, they vehemently reject any possible political attack of the DSP over the situation.

While acknowledging that, His Excellency, Senator Jibrin did his best through the Minister of State, Education, to see the possibility of policy reversal, but that couldn’t be possible, as revealed by the Senator, the majority of students and their parents, including well wishers, further revealed that, the students benefiting from the scholarship scheme were not members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) only, they cut across party boundaries. So according to them, linking the relocation issue to politics is baseless, needless and uncalled for.

Anwar writes from Kano
Wednesday, 3rd June, 2026

– Sufyan Lawal Kabo (Sefjamil)
sefjamil3@gmail.com

The writing is clearly on the wall: Peter Obi’s repeated defence and open sympathy for the terrorist group IPOB expose a dangerous agenda against the unity and stability of Nigeria. His posture raises serious suspicions about a calculated attempt to advance the Southeast’s secessionist ambitions and ultimately push an agenda of Igbo political dominance over the country. No true nationalist would continue to associate with or defend a group whose activities have threatened national peace, security, and coexistence.

As Nigeria gradually moves toward another electoral season, many citizens are beginning to critically re-examine the political movement built around Peter Obi and the Obidient ideology. While his supporters present him as a symbol of change, many Nigerians, especially in the North and parts of the Southwest, remain deeply worried about the kind of political tension and division that often surrounds his movement.

One of the major concerns repeatedly raised against Peter Obi is his controversial position regarding IPOB. The Indigenous People of Biafra was declared a terrorist organisation by the Nigerian military on September 15, 2017. Various federal authorities defended that action based on security concerns and separatist activities.

However, over the years, Obi turned out being too soft toward IPOB and failing to clearly distance himself from separatist sentiments. This has continued to generate suspicion among many Nigerians who believe national unity must remain non-negotiable.

Another issue that generated strong reactions during the 2023 election was Peter Obi’s repeated “take back your country” campaign slogan in churches. Across several campaign appearances especially in churches where he seem to prefer campaigning, Obi consistently told worshippers that it was time to “take back the country.” a phrase dangerously promoted resentment and emotional anger against existing institutions. Many also observed that the slogan gained massive traction particularly within emotionally charged religious gatherings and church based mobilisations during the campaign period.

For a country already struggling with ethnic and religious fault lines, many Nigerians feared that such rhetoric could deepen division instead of promoting unity.

Equally controversial was Obi’s 2023 campaign visit to Kano State. Political observers noted that his major outing in Kano was concentrated around Sabon Gari, an area historically dominated by Igbo traders and residents. A presidential candidate seeking national unity should visibly engage broader indigenous communities across Kano rather than appearing politically comfortable only within ethnic strongholds. Many northern citizens interpreted the optics as politically insensitive and reflective of identity based mobilisation.

Another worrying trend in recent times is the increasing disrespect directed at northern historical leaders such as Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa by the Igbo supporters of Obi especially those in southeast and the Kwankwasiyya members in Kano. These men remain foundational figures in Nigeria’s political history and symbols of Northern leadership and sacrifice. Sadly, social media spaces have increasingly become filled with insulting comments, revisionist attacks and mockery against these late leaders.

While political disagreement is normal in democracy, there is a dangerous culture developing where historical figures are demonised simply because of modern political bitterness. Such attacks are unhealthy for national unity and dangerous for younger generations who may grow up without respect for the sacrifices of Nigeria’s founding fathers.

Many Nigerians are therefore beginning to ask difficult questions. Did Obi, being a dire supporter of IPOB, terrorist group, deserve to become a president of this country? Is the Obidient movement truly about national unity, or has it become a platform driven mainly by anger, online aggression and ethnic emotions? Can Nigeria survive another wave of highly emotional politics built around social media propaganda and regional grievances?

The truth is that Nigeria needs reforms, competent leadership and accountability. But Nigeria also needs stability, unity and mutual respect among all ethnic and religious groups. No political ambition should be allowed to inflame ethnic suspicion or deepen regional hostility.

As 2027 gradually approaches, Nigerians must be careful not to surrender the future of the country to emotional propaganda, social media pressure or divisive political narratives. Leadership should unite Nigeria, not polarise it further.

Sufyan writes from Abuja

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