Former Kaduna Central lawmaker, Senator Shehu Sani, has advised ex-President Goodluck Jonathan against running in the 2027 presidential election, cautioning that Nigeria’s political environment has changed dramatically since his time in office.
Speculations about Jonathan’s possible comeback have grown in recent months amid debates over a one-term Southern presidency and the emergence of a new opposition coalition spearheaded by the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, Sani argued that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which Jonathan rode to victory in 2011, has become fragmented and weakened.
“Each time there is an election, the name of Jonathan comes up. It is his volition to contest, but I advise him not to do that. The reason is very simple: the PDP he used to know is not the PDP now,” Sani said.
He noted that while some PDP factions in the South-West openly support President Bola Tinubu, others are aligning with the opposition coalition, leaving Jonathan without a solid political base.
Sani also dismissed the emerging coalition’s strength, claiming its members lack ideological clarity and do not differ fundamentally from Tinubu’s political philosophy.
“We are in a democracy, and it is within the right and ambit of our democratic law to have an opposition. But if their only cause for power is to remove Tinubu without providing any alternative to governance, then they have no agenda,” he said.
According to him, the coalition is not built on contrasting values such as liberalism versus conservatism or socialism versus capitalism. Instead, its key members share similar economic policies, such as devaluation and subsidy removal, with the Tinubu administration.
