According to a report by Daily Post Nigeria on Monday, May 11, 2026, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has advised opposition parties in Nigeria to rethink any plan to automatically zone their 2027 presidential ticket to the South before holding primaries.
He argued that the issue should be treated as a matter of strategic political judgment rather than an unwritten rule that must be followed without considering broader electoral realities.
In a statement released through his spokesperson, Olusola Sanni, Atiku warned opposition figures against what he described as a misleading and self-defeating argument insisting that the 2027 ticket must exclusively go to the South.
He noted that while zoning within the All Progressives Congress may be understandable as a way of sustaining the presidency under President Bola Tinubu, it would be a mistake for the opposition to adopt the same approach without carefully assessing political realities.
According to him, winning an election requires calculation, structure, alliances, and numbers, not emotional reasoning or symbolic fairness.
Atiku stressed that political success depends on building strong coalitions, studying opponents, and understanding voter distribution across the country in order to design an effective campaign strategy.
The statement also criticized the moral justification often used to support southern zoning, describing it as inconsistent and selectively applied.
It argued that some advocates of zoning have changed positions over time, recalling how similar principles were overlooked after the death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2011, but are now being presented as fixed political doctrine.
While acknowledging that the South-East has a legitimate right to aspire to the presidency, the statement cautioned against turning that aspiration into what it called political bargaining that could weaken opposition unity.
It further urged opposition parties to focus on building a strong national coalition capable of challenging the ruling party, rather than adopting positions that could indirectly strengthen Tinubu’s chances in 2027.
In his words, Atiku said it is inconsistent for those who supported a southern presidency in 2011 under Goodluck Jonathan to now present themselves as defenders of strict rotational justice, adding that political principles should not change based on personal advantage….See More
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