Former Kaduna Central Senator, Shehu Sani, has urged ex-President Goodluck Jonathan not to contest the 2027 presidential election, warning that Nigeria’s political terrain has significantly changed since his time in office.
Speculation about Jonathan’s possible return has been gaining traction, particularly amid debates over a one-term Southern presidency and the rise of a new opposition coalition spearheaded by the African Democratic Congress.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, Sani argued that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), under which Jonathan won the 2011 election, has become fractured and weakened.
“Each time there is an election, the name of Jonathan comes up, but 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.
“The PDP in the South-West is endorsing the president. Some members of the party are in the coalition. So, it is the party he used to know, so he shouldn’t waste his time,” he said.
Sani also dismissed the capacity of the emerging opposition coalition, saying its members lack ideological depth and differ little from President Bola Tinubu’s political philosophy.
“We are in a democracy, and it is within the right and ambit of our democratic experiment or law to have an opposition that will give an alternative, but if their only cause for power is to remove Tinubu without providing any alternative to governance and his style, then, they have no agenda.
“The people that constitute the coalition today are not ideologically and philosophically different from the programmes which the Tinubu administration is prosecuting. So, it’s not like we have a Marxist and a Capitalist or a Neo-Liberal and a Conservative.
“During their campaigns and in their dear lives, you can see those liberal values of devaluation and removal of subsidy and some other party,” he added.
