Nigeria’s 2027 primaries are not fully over, but the knives are down for the defectors. The tears are dry, and the real losers are now sitting in a quiet, humiliating limbo.
For years they treated party platforms like Ubers — hop in, ride to power, jump out when the next car looks faster. That was carpet-crossing. It was easy. It was shameless. And it worked, because the mandate belonged to the party symbol, not to the voter. That window just slammed shut.
The Electoral Act 2026, with its mandatory direct primaries and strict membership registers, made cross-carpeting political suicide. You can’t defect six months to election and expect to keep your seat. Sections 68 and 109 of the Constitution now bite. So the same governors and lawmakers who defected to APC after 2023, hopeful of automatic tickets, are now stranded. They lost in the primaries, and they can’t run back to PDP or Labour. They are moribund. Political zombies waiting for 2031.
Good. Let it hurt.
A Quick Clarification: The Primaries Aren’t Over for Everyone
Before you assume the whole contest is done: it isn’t.
What’s done is that that the ADC primaries prep is advanced. Atiku Abubakar, Rotimi Amaechi, and Mohammed Hayatu-Deen have picked and submitted nomination forms for ADC’s presidential ticket as of May 2026. Talks are still ongoing within the party but from the looks of it, all is not well within it’s emerging factions. APC, PDP, and Labour Party haven’t held their presidential primaries yet. What you’re seeing now is aspirants jockeying, lobbying, and some losing out in state/legislative primaries or party congresses. INEC’s 2026 draft regulations push for mandatory direct primaries and strict submission of membership registers. Parties are still finalizing candidates. The 2027 general election is scheduled for Feb 2027, so the main primaries will probably run late 2026.
So when I say “the primaries are over,” I mean for the defectors who lost early and are now politically marooned. For APC and PDP, the main primaries are still ahead. This is what happens when politics is reduced to personal vending. No ideology. No party loyalty. Just a desperate chase for incumbency and immunity.
They defected not because APC suddenly found policy clarity, but because they wanted Tinubu’s backing for a second term. They gambled that the ruling party would shield them from primaries. They lost. And now they are angry, sad, dejected … the exact emotions they inflicted on voters when they abandoned mandates overnight.
Greed has a memory. The South-South used to be PDP’s backyard since 1999. Today it’s APC territory, not because voters changed their minds, but because four governors crossed over after winning on PDP’s platform. Millions of votes transferred without a single ballot recast. That is not politics. That is theft with a smile.
Nigerians should mark these names. Observe them. These are the men and women who believe your vote is a lease they can reassign at will. When they come back in 2031 with new slogans and fake remorse, remember who sold your mandate for a ticket.
Now to the African Democratic Congress, the new house for political orphans.
Atiku Abubakar and Rotimi Amaechi both submitted ADC presidential forms in May 2026. The form costs ₦90m, because nothing says “I feel your pain” like a nine-figure entry fee in a country where garri is luxury.
The ADC was sold as a coalition to rescue Nigeria from one-party dominance. But it is already unraveling under the same ego that killed PDP.
Atiku’s playbook is predictable: secure the North, pick a Southern running mate, negotiate. But 2027 is not 2019. The South is done playing second fiddle. Amaechi represents that mood.A former Speaker, Governor, Minister, with a South-South base that the party cannot afford to lose.
If Atiku insists on running, he forces a Southern coalition that may split the Southern base and leave Atiku fighting for a North that is no longer guaranteed. It also pushes APC to defend the South harder, possibly creating an unlikely APC-North alliance with ADC.
Let’s be blunt: Atiku running in 2027 does more good than evil but not for the reason you may think.
It does good because it will finally force the opposition to choose between gerontocracy and renewal. It will expose that the “coalition” was never about Nigeria, but about packaging the ADC structure for one man’s seventh attempt. ADC insiders already say the structure is being packaged for Atiku. Dumebi Kachikwu called it a hijack.
Atiku will undo himself by insisting. He will fracture the coalition, hand APC an easier path, and confirm to Nigerians that the opposition’s biggest enemy is its own ambition. That clarity is useful. Nigerians need to see, without doubt, that some men would rather burn the house than give up the key.
2026 has trapped the defectors. Good. Let them stew in the mess they made but all means, the people’s job is not over. It is to watch, record, and remember. Mark the politicians who used your vote as collateral for their next appointment. Mark the ones who scream “democracy” only when they lose primaries. Mark the ones who see public office as retirement planning.
Nigeria doesn’t need more political nomads. It needs citizens who punish betrayal with irrelevance.
Nigerians, keep your eyes open. The same men who gaslit you in 2023 are rehearsing for 2027. Show them where the true power lies!
Olu Adekunle is a Public Policy Analyst/Public Affairs Commentator and he writes from Abuja.
