Kenneth Okonkwo has backed Northern Candidate for 2027.
NewsOnline Nigeria reports that a former chieftain of the Labour Party (LP), Kenneth Okonkwo has declared that his support for the 2027 presidential election will go to a northern candidate to effectively challenge President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the polls.
Okonkwo, who served as a spokesperson for the Peter Obi/Ahmed Baba-Datti campaign in the 2023 elections, made this known during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday.
According to him, fielding a southern candidate against Tinubu, who is also from the South, would play directly into the hands of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and give the President an easy route to a second term.
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“My strategy this time around is that I am going to support a northerner in 2027,” Okonkwo said. “It must be a northerner that the whole north is willing to support.”
He added that he would support any qualified northern candidate backed by the region, mentioning Atiku Abubakar and Aminu Tambuwal as possible contenders, provided they meet the necessary qualifications and have widespread regional support.
Peter Obi Can’t Win 2027 – Okonkwo
Okonkwo went further to explain why he believes Peter Obi or any southern candidate stands no real chance of winning the 2027 presidency.
He alleged that Obi won the 2023 election but was “robbed of victory” and warned that a similar outcome would happen again if the opposition fails to unite behind a northern candidate.
“Anybody telling you to bring a fresh southerner to compete against Tinubu, a southerner, is trying to zone the ticket to Tinubu. And Tinubu will win outright,” Okonkwo asserted.
He argued that power of incumbency and establishment support play crucial roles in Nigerian politics, and the opposition must be strategic to unseat the ruling APC.
“If you bring somebody from the Southeast, even if he wins, they will steal it from him,” he said. “Peter Obi won the election in 2023, and they stole it from us. If you do it again, they will steal it again.”
Okonkwo concluded that only a strong northern candidate, backed by the region, could overcome the structural and political obstacles facing the opposition in 2027.
