2027: Why northern leaders settled for Peter Obi as most capable ally – Kwankwaso

Former Kano State Governor and leader of the Kwankwasiyya movement, Rabiu Kwankwaso, has disclosed that northern political leaders conducted a thorough assessment of potential allies before settling on Peter Obi as the most capable partner to prosecute the 2027 presidential election campaign.

Kwankwaso dismissed concerns about any hidden power struggle between his camp and Obi’s, insisting that the alliance was built on careful deliberation rather than regional sentiment alone.

Speaking in a broadcast interview on Monday, Kwankwaso offered his most detailed account yet of how the North-Southeast political alliance within the National Democratic Congress was formed.

“I looked around together with our leadership in the north to say, okay, who do we think is capable? Who can come and work together with us honestly so that we can move this country? Along the line, we realised that Peter Obi is at the forefront of it. That’s why we all accepted to work together,” he said.

Kwankwaso, a two-term former governor of Kano State and the presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party in 2023, leads the Kwankwasiyya movement, a grassroots political force with deep loyalty across Kano and parts of northern Nigeria. He left the NNPP amid internal disputes before joining the NDC alongside Obi earlier this month.

Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, ran on the Labour Party platform in 2023 and drew massive youth-driven support across the South and urban centres, though he did not win the presidency. Both men formally joined the NDC on May 3, defecting from the crisis-hit African Democratic Congress.

At the party’s national convention in Abuja over the weekend, Kwankwaso backed the NDC’s decision to zone its 2027 presidential ticket to the South, describing it as a step toward fairness, healing and national cohesion.

Responding to questions about whether the alliance concealed a quiet rivalry between both camps, Kwankwaso argued that friction between principals and their deputies was a product of greed, not structural tension.

“The problem people are having, especially leaders, is that they are too greedy to the extent that they begin to have issues. There is so much to do. You don’t have to fight your deputy,” he said.

He pointed to his record as a former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives and later as governor of Kano State, noting that political partnerships could hold under pressure. He cited working amicably with his speaker and handing over to his deputy governor after eight years in office despite initial difficulties.

Kwankwaso extended the argument beyond personal experience, applying the same principle to the federal level, including the Senate and other government bodies.

He grounded the alliance in Nigerian political history, tracing a lineage of productive North-Southeast partnerships from the First Republic to the present. He referenced the collaboration between former Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa and leaders of the NCNC, as well as that of former President Shehu Shagari and his vice president, Alex Ekwueme, in the Second Republic.

Kwankwaso also noted that subsequent administrations had shifted power-sharing away from the South-East, a pattern he suggested the current alliance was correcting. He cited the annulled election of the Third Republic, the interim government under Ernest Shonekan from the South-West, and the eventual emergence of Olusegun Obasanjo and Bola Tinubu from the same zone.

He was emphatic that the choice of Obi was not driven by regional sentiment alone. “It wasn’t just because we are going to the South-West just because of the South-West. No. We realised that Peter Obi is at the forefront of it and that’s why we all accepted to work together,” he said.

The movement of both men into the NDC has triggered a wave of defections, with senators, House of Representatives members and political blocs aligned with their former coalition gravitating toward the new party, rapidly reshaping calculations ahead of the 2027 elections.

The alliance pairs Kwankwaso’s northern grassroots structure and disciplined voter mobilisation with Obi’s national youth engagement and urban electoral momentum, positioning the NDC as one of the main opposition platforms set to challenge President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress in 2027.