KADUNA, Nigeria — The escalating internal friction within Nigeria’s main opposition landscape has taken a highly dramatic turn following a sharp public intervention by the former lawmaker representing Kaduna Central senatorial district, Senator Shehu Sani. The prominent human rights activist and social commentator has strongly criticized recent tactical maneuvers by an influential faction of the Peoples Democratic Party aimed at draft-enlisting former President Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as their consensus presidential standard-bearer for the upcoming 2027 general elections. Sani has openly described the sudden political push as an entirely belated, hypocritical, and highly exploitative strategy designed to serve the desperate survival interests of a fractured political elite rather than a genuine effort to restore stable national leadership.
The outspoken former senator made his critical views public through a detailed, widely circulated commentary posted on his official X handle on Monday morning. Sani was reacting directly to emerging media reports detailing the formal adoption and declaration of the former president as the preferred choice of a major, breakaway internal organ of the Peoples Democratic Party as the country begins to gradually transition into early campaign cycles ahead of the next national ballot.
According to the analytical assessment provided by the former Kaduna Central lawmaker, the political actors who are currently positioning themselves as the ultimate champions of Jonathan’s return to the presidential villa are the very same individuals who systematically abandoned, sabotaged, and failed to support his leadership ambitions when the political party possessed its full electoral vitality, institutional strength, and national competitiveness. Sani argued that the sudden, newfound affection for the former leader among certain party elites lacks any shred of moral consistency or genuine political loyalty.
Addressing the structural timing of the faction's sudden endorsement, the former lawmaker pointed out the glaring historical contradiction in their behavior. He insisted that if these political managers truly, honestly desired the administrative return of Goodluck Jonathan, they possessed the perfect historical opportunity to formally field him as their unified presidential candidate during the previous 2023 electoral cycle. Sani observed that during that period, the main opposition party was relatively alive, operationally cohesive, and in a far superior organizational shape to mount a successful nationwide challenge against the ruling establishment, yet the party leadership chose to look in completely different directions.
Going further in his blunt assessment of the internal crisis, Sani maintained that the contemporary push by the faction is fundamentally less about offering the former Bayelsa State governor a legitimate, well-structured pathway back to executive power. Instead, he characterized it as a desperate, self-serving attempt by a weakened political class to cynically exploit Jonathan’s remaining national goodwill, untainted public image, and extensive regional influence to resuscitate an ailing, heavily divided, and structurally compromised political organization that has lost significant ground across the country's thirty-six states.
In a highly metaphorical and unsparing conclusion to his public statement, the former senator delivered a scathing verdict on the true motives of the opposition managers. He stated quite plainly that the instigators of this movement do not actually believe in the viability of a Jonathan presidency, but are simply looking for a respected elder statesman to step forward and help them carry the symbolic political coffin of a rapidly collapsing party structure.
Senator Sani’s critical commentary comes amid a torrent of rapidly evolving reactions and intense behind-the-scenes horse-trading sparked by the sudden emergence of Jonathan as the designated candidate of a powerful Peoples Democratic Party faction. The specific internal bloc driving this controversial drafting process is reportedly led by Alhaji Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and former Minister of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs. The Turaki-led group has been actively holding high-stakes consultative meetings across various geopolitical zones, arguing that the former president remains the single most unifying, experienced, and universally accepted figure capable of reclaiming power from the ruling All Progressives Congress.
However, mainstream political analysts monitoring the deepening split within the opposition infrastructure suggest that the unilateral adoption of Jonathan by a singular internal faction will likely accelerate the fragmentation of the party rather than foster the desired unity. With rival camps within the organization still locked in a bitter, protracted legal and administrative battle over the control of the party’s national working committee, the entry of Jonathan’s name into the 2027 matrix adds an immense layer of complexity. As the former president himself continues to maintain a calculated, diplomatic silence regarding these public draft movements, Sani’s warning serves as an early indication that the road to building a formidable, unified opposition coalition ahead of the 2027 presidential contest remains fraught with profound ideological distrust and deep structural obstacles.
