•Tinubu and Suswam
Former Benue State governor and chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Gabriel Suswam, has said that the planned opposition coalition would be the party to beat in the 2027 elections, adding that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) should be worried.
Suswam, who was a guest on Channels Television last night, said that most Nigerians are dissatisfied with the current administration’s economic policies, and the coalition will leverage that discontent.
“This is not the first time you are going to have a scenario such as this. Nigerians, based on the economic policies of this administration, are very dissatisfied.
“There is no Nigerian that is not affected by the economic policies of this administration and so I believe that the coalition will be the party to beat, and so if I am in the ruling party I should be worried about it,” Suswam said.
During his one-day visit to Nasarawa State yesterday, President Bola Tinubu dismissed the coalition, describing those at the forefront of the move as internally displaced politicians, IDPs.
Reacting to Tinubu’s statement, Suswam recalled how he and other PDP leaders had dismissed the opposition merger that led to the formation of the APC ahead of the 2015 elections, only for the party (PDP) to suffer defeat.
“We were doing the same thing when we were in government, we were dismissing APC then completely. People didn’t just give them any chance at all but they won that election,” he said.
The former governor said that the people that would constitute the coalition would determine whether the ruling party should be worried.
He said that the reason the ruling party should be worried was because a lot of its members were interested in the coalition.
Asked if he was a part of the coalition, Suswam said that he was dissatisfied with the PDP and that if the coalition presented a good platform he would join them.
The main opposition PDP has been embroiled in an internal crisis that has lingered for over two years now, and Suswam said he did not see the party coming out of it any time soon before the 2027 elections.
“We are in June and we have two months until 2026. Around March and April 2026, full political activities would have started, the party that is not together and does not look like it will put itself together cannot be part of that (2027) elections.
“I don’t see the PDP coming out of this quagmire anytime soon, and I want to contest the election, so I wouldn’t want to waste my time waiting and imagining,” he said.
He said that if he was given a chance to resolve the crisis in the PDP, he would first sit down with the aggrieved members of the party, seek to know what the issues are, and address them.
