A former chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Lukman, has outlined the way to defeat President Bola Tinubu and the APC in 2027.
Lukman said Tinubu can only be defeated by an opposition with a strong relationship with Nigerians, built on a well-thought-out vision of moving the country forward.
This vision should prioritize creating a robust political platform that transcends merely producing election candidates.
In a statement yesterday, Lukman emphasized that Nigerians are disillusioned with the APC’s unfulfilled promises of change since 2015 and will be skeptical of similar vows from other politicians.
He cautioned that focusing solely on defeating the APC and Tinubu would be insufficient, instead advocating for a broad-based political platform capable of attracting competent leaders and expanding citizen participation.
To achieve this, Lukman proposed that prominent opposition leaders, such as Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, should assume key roles in the new party.
He said the frontline leaders should also include the alienated leaders of APC who will commit themselves to building the new political opposition party, such as Prof. Yomi Osinbajo, Rotimi Amaechi, Dr Kayode Fayemi, Nasir El-Rufai, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and the old CPC tendencies, amongst others.
“If at all opposition leaders are seriously committed to rescuing Nigeria, resolving the challenge of party funding must be prioritised. Associated with issues of funding is about ensuring proper budgeting that should cover remunerations and conditions of service for party leaders at all levels.
“There is also the urgent need for the new opposition political platform to be strongly commitment to engendering new inclusive and people friendly orientation, which can open Nigerian elections to broader participation by citizens across all sections of the country,” he said.
Lukman also said Nigerians will want to see opposition political leaders honestly committing themselves towards developing a new marshal plan for the country around these issues.
He said based on the envisioned marshal plan, the opposition political leaders should demonstrate commitment to raise annual national budget of the country to least N150 trillion from the current unambitiously less than N40 trillion.
The former progressive governors’ forum director general also said the new reorganised political opposition in the country should commit itself to raising the annual budgets of all states’ governments in the country to not less than N1 trillion, as only Lagos state currently operate an annual budget of more than N1 trillion.
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“In other words, is the new opposition political party going to be limited to being an election platform or will it serve as a broad political platform capable of expanding the recruitment base for competent political leaders in the country?
“Will Alh. Atiku Abubakar, Mr. Peter Obi, Sen. Rabiu Musa Kwankwasau and all the prospective opposition leaders submit themselves and serve as the agents that will midwife the emergence of the envisioned broad opposition political platform in Nigeria?
“Or will they remain only fixated with their narrow ambitions of emerging as candidates for 2027 elections? Based on all the ongoing consultations among opposition leaders in the country, although all these leaders have ambitions to contest elections, in varying degrees, they all are commitment to the progress of Nigeria.
“The big challenge is whether negotiations among opposition leaders will be broadened to the level of inviting wider participation of Nigerians, which can challenge Nigerian politicians to prioritise taking up the responsibility of party leadership.
“The alternative will be whether opposition leaders will reduce the current initiative to organise a new political platform to imposing themselves and emerge as candidates for 2027 elections with all the high probability that they may become worse than current leaders,” he added.
