•Former Senate President Bukola Saraki
By the end of December 2024, so much energy had been expended on the push for the launch of a mega party being midwifed by a coalition of political bigwigs. But following some missed timelines, and the unexpected cold feet from some circles, this article looks at the emerging realities in the mega party caucus in comparison with the 2013/14 experience, reports Sunday Tribune.
Close to the end of December 2025, not a few political bigwigs, especially some aggrieves members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and key members of the major political parties including the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would boldly beat their chests that a major tsunami was afoot in Nigeria’s political circles.
The optimism at the time would have been based on the zeal and enthusiasm put into the drive for the emergence of a new mega party by the proponents.
Around the middle of the year 2024, key opposition figures had concluded that no one single party could go it alone against the APC in the 2027 election.
Former governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule Lamido was to put a seal on that thinking when he said in an interview that if President Bola Tinubu, could win the 2023 presidential election despite all the stakes against him, it would be difficult to remove him from the seat now that he has control of the nation’s security apparatus.
So, the key political stakeholders across political parties started a series of meetings that had the singular aim of birthing a mega political coalition which would be string enough to battle the APC in 2027.
Following some interactions with some of the proponents, the our correspondent was told that the identity, manifesto and the faces behind the new coalition would have been unveiled by the end of February 2025. Soon after that revelation, it emerged that loyalists of former vice president Atiku Abubakar, some allies of former President Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election, Mr. Peter Obi and the leadership of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) were involved in the talks. Pictures of a meeting at the headquarters of the SDP in Wuse, Abuja were to surface in the social media early in 2025, prompting a lot of fast-paced exercises. Former governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai emerged a big voice on the opposition lane, and it appeared that things were working according to plan. According to sources, the plan was to launch the coalition of political parties by the end of February and start shaking the very foundation of the APC. El-Rufai announced his defection from the ruling party along the line, declaring that rather than leave the APC, the party has indeed left him.
Rather than serve as the catalyst for more troubles to the ruling party, El-Rufai’s defection has so far brought a mixed grill in the political circles. Somehow, the fear of the moving train which the mega party option appeared to be looked started fading, while some top leaders expected to join its fray were said to be developing cold feet. Sources in the political circles said that the failure of the proponents of the mega party coalition to properly read the book that birthed the APC in 2014 is the source of the travails the opposition is already facing even before the race for 2027 kicks off. It was learnt that several leaders saw the decision to make El-Rufai the anchor person of the opposition coalition immediately opened the bid to criticisms.
Senator Shehu Sani, who represented Kaduna Central in the 8th Senate, said recently that El-Rufai would surely amount to political liability in the camp of the opposition. “Mark my words,” he said, “you will say I told you.”
According to the Senator, El-Rufai had lost his political relevance before he left as Kaduna governor, adding that he not only lost all the three senatorial districts, but he also equally lost nine of the fourteen seats in the House of Representatives, with LP clinching two seats and APC three. Said Senator Sani: “And please you mark my word, his presence there will bring a lot of internal crises in the party and the party will likely go the way of PDP. They have been living in peace. The party has been living in peace, and they have been winning elections. But his (El-Rufai’s) coming will be trouble for them and I hope one day someone will refer to this interview and say I told him so.”
Perhaps he was right or maybe some things are circumstantial. The entry of the former Kaduna governor into the anchorage of the coalition appears to have led to some foot-dragging among stakeholders. Some are said to be of the view that El-Rufai was already branded as an angry man and that many Nigerians may not see a truly principled stance in his criticisms of the Tinubu administration. They compared the development with the peculiar assignments performed by the former Senate President Bukola Saraki and others in the build-up to the 2014 coalition. ‘Whereas in 2014, the likes of Senator Saraki held firmly to two fronts, the National Assembly front and the organised business sector. He was the link between the corporate sector and the political wing, and he used that to advantage,” a source said.
Sources keeping a close eye on the development in the coalition have said that the undoing of the current coalition was its failure to address the key issue of the rallying point for the 2027 presidential contest straightaway.
It was learnt that the coalition proponents failed to define the clear direction of things unlike the 2014 example. “In 2014, it was concluded early enough that at least 70 percent of the stakeholders were working for the emergence of General Muhammadu Buhari. The caucus led by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the then ACN had that understanding, just like those of Buhari’s CPC, the ANPP caucus and the same was true of the nPDP members who were under Saraki’s leadership. So, it was easy to manage the outcome of the primaries held in Lagos,” a source said, adding that proponents of the mega party option in 2027 left the matter on the table, preferring to address it after the party had been formed.
A source also said that unlike the 2014 experience, when the likes of Bukola Saraki, Senator Aminu Tambuwal, former Rivers governor, Rotimi Amaechi, and others joined forces with the ACN/CPC coalition to undermined the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and when they were able to create a huge momentum to form a platform that appealed to the young and old categories of politicians, the current coalition was taking things for granted. ‘You don’t leave a raging fire on your rooftop and go to sleep,’ a source said.
A source said that proponents are also missing the likes of Senator Bukola Saraki and his fellow compatriot from the North Central, Senator David Mark. Whereas Saraki’s nPDP attempted to swing the majority in the Senate in favour of the nPDP, Mark resisted and ensured a balance in the National Assembly. Such a display of game of wits and strategy is missing in this build-up, a source said.
A source knowledgeable about the development said: “We must realise that one of the game changers for the 2014 efforts was Bukola Saraki whose network, mobilisation skills, and popularity with the organised private sector are well known. They thought that it was all about his presidential ambition, when he led the nPDP, but he came out early enough to state that he was only a part of the solution to the problems of the country. He joined forces with other stakeholders to produce a presidential candidate who supplanted the incumbent.”
The coalition ran into a bad wind early in the day when a spat between Sule Lamido and El-Rufai appeared to have dampened the spirits. The former Kaduna governor said in an interview that elders like Lamido and co should join forces with him in the SDP, but Lamido interpreted that to mean an insult, an indication that the elders’ caucus may not be at home with the former governor.
Indeed, questions are being raised about the viability of the coalition and the absence of anchor persons with technical abilities, like Saraki displayed in 2014. For example, a source questioned how the new coalition would get the much-needed funds from the private sector without a known linkman that sector can trust. How would the coalition escape INEC’s vigilance? How will other stakeholders believe that it is worth coming together when it could happen that one of the forces could hijack the structure like it happened to the APC after Buhari’s emergence? The source pointed to the travails of Saraki as the President of the Senate under Buhari’s presidency as an example of the things slowing down the pace of the planned coalition.
Sources said that going by such experiences, politicians are usually circumspect in launching out full throttle. According to sources, in the build-up to the 2015 election, aside from Tinubu and Amaechi, who played critical roles, Saraki was the other party leader who can creditably share the spoils of that success.
Sources have said that while funds from Tinubu and Amaechi came in handy at the initial stage of the party’s formation, Saraki was said to have stepped in at the most critical stages when the party appeared stranded and vulnerable. At one instance, a source said that following the postponement of the 2015 election, the party looked stranded, Saraki, was able to consult with a top banker, who through the organised private sector, was able to facilitate the needed bailouts for the opposition.
But credible sources have, however, stated that the mega party proponents have failed to convince Saraki to join their fold. A source said that the former Senate President was of the view that the PDP remains the only party that could provide the needed opposition come 2027. Right now, sources said that the duo of Mark and Saraki prefer to siddon look as we speak.
Whether the opposition elements would pull through the mega party option remains in the works, but there is no doubt that emerging developments are already dampening the initial excitement in the camps.
