As Nigeria approaches the 2027 general elections with just over six months to go, its main opposition parties are increasingly embroiled in leadership struggles and legal battles even as the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) consolidates its structures and prepares to face a divided and depleted field.
From the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), once the country’s leading opposition platform, to the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the Labour Party (LP) and the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), the story is the same.
Parallel leaderships, rival conventions, duplicated candidates and an endless stream of lawsuits before the courts hold sway. The upshot is a creeping sense of uncertainty for thousands of candidates already cleared to contest next year’s polls, many of them unsure whether the platforms on which they hope to run will survive the litigation that has consumed their parties.
The crisis has resulted in two parallel primaries and hence two presidential candidates in the PDP. The National Working Committee led by Abdulraman Mohammed, and backed by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has chosen former Cross River senator Sandy Onor as the party’s presidential flag bearer for 2027.
The Interim National Working Committee led by Tanimu Turaki, on the other hand, claims it has picked former President Goodluck Jonathan as the authentic PDP candidate. Last Wednesday, the two camps separately issued certificates of return to their gubernatorial and National Assembly candidates in separate ceremonies, underscoring how entrenched the division has become.
Currently the Mohammed led faction is in the driving seat as its leadership is recognized by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). But the Turaki camp, through its Board of Trustees, has gone to court seeking an order compelling INEC to recognise it instead, one of at least two other suits on the PDP crisis currently before different courts.
Wike told a recent meeting of the National Executive Committee at the party’s secretariat in Wadata Plaza, Abuja, that the battle for the soul of the PDP had already been won and lost and insisted the worst was over.
He said the access code issued by INEC to political parties for the 2027 process was expected by June 26 and his camp had no cause for fear.
But the spokesman for the Turaki led faction, Ini Ememobong, downplayed the importance of the access code saying what really counts is whose candidates are on the ballot. He compared the contest to a marathon, not a sprint, noting that his faction put up a candidate in Ekiti without the benefit of INEC’s portal access.
The ADC, which has put itself forward as a coalition platform for the 2027 contest, is no better off. There is currently a three-way split in the party; one faction is led by former Senate President David Mark, who is regarded as the mainstream bloc and currently recognized by INEC; one faction is led by Kingsley Ogga; and the other faction is led by former deputy national chairman, Nafiu Bala.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is one of the prominent allies of the Mark camp.
The national publicity secretary of the ADC, Bolaji Abdullahi, confirmed that the party is facing three separate cases in court, including a suit by Bala challenging Mark’s leadership, a suit on the party’s deregistration and another filed by aggrieved state chairmen.
Abdullahi, however, brushed aside the disruption, saying the party had survived legal attacks since its inception and would not be derailed.
For his part, Ogga said his camp’s case was about holding the party to its own constitution, not in service of any personal interest.
It is a view echoed by Ememobong of the PDP, who alleged that the wave of litigation rocking opposition parties had been deliberately orchestrated by the APC led federal government to keep its rivals in disarray.
He cited past statements purportedly made by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in which the president allegedly expressed satisfaction at seeing the opposition divided, as evidence of a state engineered strategy.
Abdullahi echoed the charge, describing the scale of legal harassment facing opposition parties as unprecedented in Nigeria’s political history and warning it does not augur well for the country’s democracy.
The LP offers perhaps the starkest example of opposition disarray. Despite a series of court rulings that have, for now, favoured the faction led by Nenadi Usman, the rival camp loyal to former national chairman, Julius Abure, insists that the battle is far from over and is waiting for a final verdict from the Supreme Court.
The standoff has produced parallel structures, separate congresses and conventions and, breathtakingly, two presidential candidates for one party.
The Usman led faction has settled for Dr Chibuzo Okereke, a governance expert and public policy scholar at Miva Open University, Abuja, presenting him through a consensus process as a reform minded candidate with a background in institutional development and accountability.
On its part, the Abure-led faction has nominated its immediate past National Youth Leader, Prince Kennedy Ahanotu, as a fresh and youthful face who can mobilise young Nigerians and has insisted that his emergence was as a result of valid congresses conducted under its leadership.
Only the Supreme Court can finally decide the leadership question,Dr Ayo Olorunfemi, Deputy National Chairman, Abure faction, said and maintained that even an adverse ruling cannot automatically grant victory to the candidates of the Usman camp.
But Elder Yusuf Solomon Danbaki, a former Kaduna State LP chairman, who is now a senatorial candidate for Kaduna Central under the Usman faction, said the battle was already over, describing Abure’s parallel primaries as a mere distraction.
With both sides laying claim to legitimacy and fielding rival presidential candidates, the LP heads into 2027 weakened and divided against a resurgent APC.
Compounding the opposition’s troubles was the unfolding crisis around the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), a party that only months ago appeared to be emerging as a fresh rallying point for disaffected opposition figures.
The trouble began with a December 2025 judgment, when the Federal High Court ordered INEC to register the NDC after the party challenged the commission’s earlier refusal to recognise it.
But the same court overturned that judgment in a fresh ruling on 26 June, 2026, following an application by the unregistered Peace Movement Party (PMP), which claims to have applied for registration using the same “Victory” symbol as far back as 2015.
The NDC insisted that the latest ruling did not order its deregistration and said it is still a lawfully registered party pending its appeal.
The ruling has sent shockwaves among its members, coming at a crucial moment as INEC begins uploading candidates for the 2027 elections.
Legal analysts say the verdict has thrown up real uncertainty about the party’s standing, and could even raise questions about the validity of its nominations if the litigation drags on, though the NDC dismisses such concerns, insisting its primaries followed the electoral act and INEC’s guidelines to the letter.
Outside the courtroom, unease is spreading among the party’s rank and file. Sunday Sun learnt that some aspirants who paid hefty sums for nomination forms are worried that the legal battle could jeopardise their ambitions despite their financial and political commitment, just as aggrieved unsuccessful aspirants fuelled the murmurs of discontent in the party.
The leadership of the NDC has tried to calm frayed nerves, saying the legal challenge is politically motivated and that the court of appeal will overturn the ruling.
Cleopas Zuwoghe, the national chairman, said the Federal High Court is not the final judicial authority in the land. The party still has faith in the Nigerian judiciary, he said, adding that it would follow the appellate process and it is sure that justice will be done.
Across the PDP, ADC, LP and NDC, the pattern appears to be identical; internal power struggles playing out in the courts, parallel leaderships claiming legitimacy, and candidates left to navigate an uncertain path to the 2027 ballot.
Opposition figures say the fact that these crises have collided together at the same time, and just months before the polls, is no coincidence but rather an orchestrated attempt to undermine their parties while the APC tightens its hold on power.
However, the APC and handlers of President Tinubu have continued to deny any such design.
