Former presidential candidate, Dele Momodu, has said that the only way the opposition can defeat President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election is by zoning the presidency to the Muslim North and the vice presidency to the Christian South.
Speaking during an interview on ARISE News on Friday, Momodu said President Tinubu had already “locked down” the South, making it almost impossible for any southern presidential candidate to compete effectively against him.
“It’s obvious that the ruling government has already turned this into an ethnic battle, and it’s going to be a battle of North versus South,” Momodu said. “That is why you saw PDP and APC apparatchiks all struggling to insist that a candidate must come from the South. They know that President Tinubu has already locked down the South, and nobody — not Peter Obi, not Goodluck Jonathan — will be able to catch up with him where he is right now.”
Momodu argued that President Tinubu’s immense financial resources and control of state structures give him a major advantage, and that only a strategic counterbalance from the North could tilt the balance in favour of the opposition.
“He has a bottomless pit of resources to pour into this next election,” he said. “The opposite for Tinubu’s total lockdown of the southern regions will be for the North to retaliate from the North. The northern candidate should be a Muslim, while the southern running mate should be a Christian — that way you’ll have a decent balance and avoid the controversy of a Muslim-Muslim ticket.”
The former presidential candidate dismissed the notion that such zoning would undermine fairness or the principle of power rotation, arguing that the idea of an eight-year turn for the North and South was not enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution.
“There is nothing diabolical about my suggestion,” he said. “When was it written and where was it written in the Constitution of Nigeria that the North must do eight years and the South must do eight years thereafter? Tell me when this eight-year rotation was ever practised in Nigeria.”
“President Obasanjo did eight years, followed by President Yar’Adua, who died in power. After that, President Jonathan completed that tenure and went on to contest again, doing five years in total and contesting for another four. When you add that to Obasanjo’s eight years, that’s seventeen years of southern leadership. Nobody protested then.”
Momodu also spoke about the recent wave of defections from the opposition to the ruling APC, saying he was not surprised that politicians like Ben Murray-Bruce had crossed over to the ruling party.
“I watched it in utter disbelief because I assumed he worked with us in the Atiku campaign,” he said. “But nothing shocks me anymore about politicians. Some people have genuine reasons to move from one party to another, especially if they have aspirations better served elsewhere. But for me, I’ve seen it all before — since 1993 when top SDP leaders defected to Abacha’s camp overnight.”
He accused the ruling party of employing a mix of “cajoling, coercing, and mesmerising” tactics to weaken the opposition, saying that “Nigerians have been jazzed” by politicians who appear to be acting irrationally.
“It’s a combination of cajoling, coercing, and mesmerising,” Momodu said. “People who have no business whatsoever are defecting. I’m beginning to feel that Nigerians have been jazzed because their behaviour does not appear normal. President Tinubu is one of the most powerful democratically elected presidents in Nigeria’s history, and someone somewhere clearly does not want any competition in 2027.”
Momodu added that opposition leaders like Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi were being systematically targeted because the ruling party sees them as real threats.
“Once you see the ruling party attacking particular candidates like Atiku and Peter Obi, you know that between those two, there is something the government does not want,” he said.
The former presidential candidate maintained that without strategic unity and clear zoning, the opposition would have little chance against President Tinubu’s political machinery in 2027.
“Elections are run based on structures,” he said. “Even if you are the most popular politician, if you can’t protect your votes, you’ll lose.
He concluded that “The opposition must build structures and use strategic logic to counter Tinubu’s southern dominance.”
Boluwatife Enome
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