By Abiodun Omonijo,18th July, 2025
News SOCIETY WATCH following for you : “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
As Nigeria approaches the 2027 general elections, the country’s political landscape is again shifting beneath our feet. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), once the dominant force in Nigerian politics, is hemorrhaging political heavyweights. Some have defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC); others are aligning with an emerging coalition that threatens to upend the status quo. One must ask: what becomes of the PDP after 2027? And what challenges await the APC as it absorbs both old rivals and new ambitions?
If President Bola Ahmed Tinubu clinches a second term, his most difficult task won’t be winning the election—it will be managing the expanded and increasingly chaotic coalition that the APC is becoming. Nigerian politics is not ideological. It is transactional. And when a party becomes too crowded with personal interests, the center rarely holds.
Can the APC survive the coming storm?
Old APC members will not easily accept former PDP figures who just months ago opposed them. These newcomers will demand rewards for their “contributions” to Tinubu’s re-election—ministerial slots, board appointments, and gubernatorial tickets. But the pie is only so big. Internal resentment could bubble over, triggering fractures that will be hard to mend.
And what happens if the emerging coalition—likely made up of frustrated PDP remnants, aggrieved APC factions, and opportunistic newcomers—pulls off a shock victory in 2027?
If history is any guide, many of the same political actors currently in APC will switch allegiance, as they’ve done in the past. Loyalty in Nigerian politics is rarely to a party—it is to power. A coalition win would likely lead to another round of defections, decimating whatever ideological or organizational cohesion the APC still claims.
Post-2027, APC will have to reckon with the absence of its founding pillars. President Muhammadu Buhari is no longer in active politics, and Tinubu—by 2031—will be nearing the twilight of his political career. Without these larger-than-life figures, can APC reinvent itself as a disciplined opposition if it loses power? Or will it implode under the weight of internal contradictions?
And what of the PDP? Could it rise again?
The likes of Nyesom Wike and other defectors may yet return to the PDP, especially if they are politically outmaneuvered within the APC. Their return could revive the party—but only if they’re willing to rebuild what they once helped dismantle. A revived PDP, properly restructured and connected to the grassroots, could still serve as a viable opposition—or even a government-in-waiting.
Ultimately, how President Tinubu manages the delicate balancing act between party loyalists and defectors, interest groups and legacy politics, will determine whether the APC leaves behind a legacy of cohesion or chaos. His ability to exit the Villa in 2031 with the party intact will be studied for years by political scientists around the world.
Interesting times lie ahead. Nigeria’s political class is once again in motion—and as always, the Nigerian people must brace for the ride.
