Leading opposition figures on Monday attributed the collapse of efforts to form a united front against President Bola Tinubu to clashing personal ambitions and ideological differences.
Speaking at the opening plenary of the Nigerian Bar Association Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt, African Democratic Congress presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar (represented by his running mate Rotimi Amaechi), Nigeria Democratic Congress candidate Peter Obi and African Action Congress candidate Omoyele Sowore acknowledged their failure to reach consensus ahead of the 2027 elections.
Amaechi said nearly every politician involved in the coalition talks was unwilling to set aside personal ambitions. “Vice President Atiku will be willing to participate. But the difficulty is everybody has a vision. Nobody wants to give up. There are very few politicians who are in love with Nigeria,” he said.
He added that a coalition must first be achieved before anyone could be expected to step down. “So if you don’t have a coalition, how do you step down?” Amaechi asked, urging voters to judge candidates by their past performance rather than reject all former office-holders outright.
Obi said he remained open to a coalition if it was built around a clear purpose of improving governance. “When you talk about coalition, the first thing to ask, coalition for what? If the coalition is for good governance, to tackle the issues affecting Nigeria, I agree on it and I still think it can be achieved,” he said.
He stressed that any alliance should assess the competence, capacity, commitment and character of participants and rest on “unity of purpose.”
Sowore rejected the premise that an opposition coalition was necessary to defeat the incumbent. “To go straight to the point, I disagree with you that we need an opposition to defeat the incumbent,” he said. “It is the people, the Nigerian people, that will defeat the incumbent, not their friends who do not want to change the old order.”
He argued that politicians who supported fuel subsidy removal or lived what he described as corrupt lifestyles were no different from the current government. “If anybody is willing to change the country, I will work with the person. But I will not work with anybody who simply wants to replace the old order with an older, even ricketier order,” Sowore said.
The exchange grew heated when Sowore challenged Amaechi over the records of former public office-holders, telling them they “have no business coming back” and should apologise to Nigerians. Amaechi retorted: “Stop lying. I said, judge us by our achievements.”
Attempts to unite opposition parties have stalled for more than a year. Atiku and Obi briefly shared the ADC platform before parting ways. A planned meeting of opposition leaders on August 18 failed to hold and has been rescheduled for August 31 under an initiative known as the Group of 100. For now, the main candidates are continuing their campaigns separately.
