A former governor of Cross Rivers state and presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Donald Duke, has predicted that President Bola Tinubu will win re-election in 2027 if leading opposition candidates remain divided.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Morning Brief on Wednesday, Duke said “If Atiku Abubakar of the Africa Democratic Congress (ADC) and Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), split opposition vote between themselves, there could be a repeat the outcome of the 2023 presidential election and give Tinubu an advantage”.
Duke said the opposition would struggle to defeat the ruling party if major contenders continued to pursue separate presidential bids.
“We don’t understand what we’re doing. If in the United States, which is the system we’ve largely just copied verbatim from, they have two major parties. If you fragmented the Democrats, for instance, into two or three other parties, the Republicans will remain in office forever. That’s what we’re doing,” he said.
According to Duke, divisions among major opposition figures in 2023 spread votes among different candidates.
“In 2023, we fragmented, and all the major opposition came from PDP. You had Vice President Atiku from the PDP. You had Peter, Labour at the time, and you had Kwankwaso. They fragmented,” he said.
The former Cross River State governor attributed the difficulty of forging a common opposition platform partly to what he described as “large egos” among the leading contenders.
He said the opposition figures appeared confident about their chances in 2027 but warned that they could be disappointed if they failed to work together.
“These guys, the big ones you’re talking about, they’re preparing for inauguration. They think they’re going to win. I have news for them. They’re not going anywhere,” Duke said.
He added that he did not see any of the leading opposition candidates emerging victorious if the opposition remained divided.
“If I look at a crystal ball, what I see in that crystal ball is not them. I see another horror coming up,” he said.
Asked specifically whether his prediction meant Tinubu would win the 2027 presidential election, Duke replied, “Absolutely.”
