Former federal lawmaker Shehu Sani has advised ex-President Goodluck Jonathan against seeking a return to the presidency in the 2027 general election, arguing that the political landscape has changed significantly since his tenure.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics programme, Sani said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), under whose platform Jonathan won the 2011 presidential election, no longer has the unity or structure it once had.
“Each time there is an election, the name of Jonathan comes up, but it is his volition to contest. However, I advise him not to do that. The reason is very simple: the PDP he used to know is not the PDP now,” Sani said. “The PDP in the South-West is endorsing the president. Some members of the party are in the coalition. So, it is not the party he used to know, and he shouldn’t waste his time.”
Jonathan, who served as deputy to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, assumed office following Yar’Adua’s death in 2010. He was subsequently elected president in 2011 but lost his re-election bid to Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015. Although constitutionally eligible to serve one more four-year term, Jonathan has not publicly expressed interest in re-contesting.
Speculation around his potential return has nevertheless persisted, particularly in light of debates over zoning, the prospect of a one-term Southern presidency, and the emergence of a new opposition coalition led by the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
Sani, who represented Kaduna Central in the 8th National Assembly, also weighed in on the coalition, dismissing it as lacking ideological distinction from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
“We are in a democracy, and it is within the right and ambit of our democratic experiment 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,” he said.
According to him, the individuals driving the coalition share similar policies and values with the current administration. “The people that constitute the coalition today are not ideologically and philosophically different from the programmes which the Tinubu administration is prosecuting,” he added.
“It’s not like we have a Marxist and a Capitalist or a Neo-Liberal and a Conservative. During their campaigns and in their policies, you can see those liberal values of devaluation, removal of subsidy, and other such measures.”