Chuks Okocha in Abuja
The convener of the G100 political stress group, Salihu Lukman, has mentioned opposition events working in alliance with the group will announce a single presidential candidate for the 2027 normal election, presumably solely days earlier than the ballot.
Lukman, a former National Vice Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), spoke throughout a tv interview.
“I can inform you categorically, and my confidence about that comes from what I see within the management of the events: they’re dedicated and they’re working, taking all of the steps essential.
“So it could be two months, some weeks to the election, or a few days to the election; they will come out and tell Nigerians this is the direction, and everybody will queue”, he mentioned.
According to him, the hassle has gone past the six events at present concerned.
“They are also working to expand; they are reaching out to other parties,” he mentioned.
The G100 was shaped to push the opposition in direction of a united entrance after an all-opposition summit in Ibadan in April 2026 resolved to discipline a consensus candidate in opposition to the ruling APC.
Lukman mentioned the events and their candidates have since taken over the method from the group.
“When the parties owned the process we had started and took it beyond, took it out of our hands and began to engage each other based on the need to develop the kind of confidence they need to trust one another,” he mentioned.
He recognized the largest impediment as “the trust deficit among even the parties and the candidates.”
He defined {that a} summit on August 31 “agreed to have five working groups, and one of the working groups is the one that will work on that single consensus candidate.”
Each occasion, he mentioned, will nominate members into the group, both by way of its candidate or by way of the occasion itself, below agreed phrases of reference.
“The collegiate is basically about ensuring that both the parties and their candidates are the ones taking the decisions, and at the same time the people doing the work are people who have the mandate of both the parties and the candidates, not anybody from outside,” he mentioned.
Asked how the group would deal with supporters of Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar and the Kwankwasiyya motion, who’ve proven no signal of yielding, Lukman mentioned inflexible positions assist the ruling occasion.
“Taking a hardline position, a rigid position, is almost like working for the APC and the Tinubu government at this point,” he mentioned.
He mentioned many signatories to the G100’s open letter assist Obi or Atiku, however that the group has instructed them “the country is superior to any individual.”
Lukman mentioned John Cardinal Onaiyekan not too long ago made the identical level on Channels Television, that opposition candidates can’t break up votes 5 methods and anticipate one in all them to defeat a ruling occasion.
“The arithmetic is simple: you can’t split votes five ways and expect victory in one of you,” Lukman mentioned.
On the differing manifestos of the events, together with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate’s pledge of a 300 naira beginning pump value for petrol, Lukman mentioned the group wouldn’t merge paperwork.
“It’s not harmonising manifestos; it’s basically to come up with a minimum programme of action which the government to be produced post-2027 will prioritise implementing,” he mentioned.
He mentioned all candidates would subscribe to the programme prematurely, in order that “in the event that any of them emerge as the candidate there is no debate.”
Lukman mentioned a lot of the groundwork already exists, because the candidates’ campaigns have developed their very own positions.
“I’m sure the Peter Obi campaign has also done some work; I am also sure Prince Adewole Adebayo and all the other candidates have also done their own work,” he mentioned.
He mentioned the result could possibly be “ADC, it could be any other party, or it could be an alliance that will produce a new party,” and added: “I don’t have ambition to contest election and I don’t have ambition to hold any appointive or elective office.”
Warning candidates in opposition to clinging to their tickets, Lukman mentioned: “Politicians can lie to themselves, and at the end of the day let the candidates continue to hang on to their candidature; at the end of the day only one person will be president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
Lukman additionally addressed his withdrawal of membership of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), which he attributed to inside points in Kaduna and mentioned he has now resumed membership of the occasion.
He mentioned he feared the occasion was “shifting to a direction where we will end up reproducing the old parties we have left.”
