In a stark assessment of Nigeria’s political landscape, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, the former spokesperson of the influential Northern Elders Forum (NEF), has pronounced the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as functionally obsolete. He contends the party is “gone and beyond repair,” a declaration that signals a potential tectonic shift in the nation’s opposition politics and forces a re-examination of what credible opposition means in a post-2023 election era.
Speaking on Arise News, Baba-Ahmed framed the PDP’s decline not as a temporary setback but as a terminal condition. The party’s internal crises—leadership tussles, mass defections of governors and lawmakers to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and a palpable lack of strategic direction—have eroded its foundational credibility. This context is crucial: the PDP, which governed for 16 years and was the primary challenger in 2023, now appears to be vacating the space for a credible “government-in-waiting,” creating both a vacuum and an opportunity.
“The PDP is drifting away. I think it is gone, and I do not believe anyone can fix it,” Baba-Ahmed stated, moving the conversation from if the PDP can recover to what must fill the void. He posits that the African Democratic Congress (ADC), alongside other emergent parties, could constitute this new opposition force, but only under a radically different paradigm.
Baba-Ahmed’s critique goes deeper than mere party politics; it is a diagnosis of a systemic failure in Nigerian opposition strategy. He argues that opposition has for too long been defined reactively—by what it is against (the APC, President Tinubu)—rather than proactively by what it is for. “Nigerians want clear policy choices and well-defined governance priorities,” he emphasized. “Ask them today what they will do, beyond simply opposing and hoping they can unseat President Tinubu; they won’t tell you.”
This highlights a critical gap. For an alternative like the ADC to be taken seriously, it must transcend the label of “opposition” and establish itself as a “government-in-proposal.” Baba-Ahmed, drawing on his experience as a former special adviser on political matters, insists the party must articulate a tangible blueprint: “Somebody in this party should be saying to Nigerians, if you trust us in 2027, these are the things we will do.” This could mean detailed policy positions on insecurity, economic diversification, subsidy management, education, and power—areas where citizens feel acute pain and demand concrete solutions.
The path to building such a credible force, according to Baba-Ahmed, involves two strategic, yet potentially contradictory, maneuvers. First, he advocates for “wide-ranging recruitment of credible politicians,” including defectors from other parties, to build a broad-based coalition. This is a pragmatic recognition that political capital and structure matter. However, he immediately couples this with a severe warning against “repackaging familiar political figures as symbols of change.” This is the central tension: how to gain experience and mass without becoming a receptacle for the same recycled elite blamed for the nation’s woes.
The solution, he implies, lies in a coalition “united by ideas and a shared vision for Nigeria’s future rather than narrow political ambition.” The litmus test for any recruit must be adherence to a core, publicly-vetted manifesto, not just the allure of power.
Baba-Ahmed’s most potent point speaks to Nigeria’s demographic reality. “Sixty per cent of Nigerians will be voting now. They are young people. They want new people. They want new faces. They want new energies,” he noted. This demographic insight is a strategic imperative. A party hoping to capture the 2027 electorate must actively promote youthful, technocratic candidates and channel the digital-native energy of this demographic into its campaigning and policy formulation. It’s not just about age, but about representing a break from the perceived failures of the old political guard.
His concluding warning elevates the discussion from partisan competition to existential necessity: the collapse of effective democratic opposition and governance would be disastrous for all Nigerians. Therefore, the project of building a credible, ideas-based alternative is not just an electoral project but a democratic safeguard.
In essence, Baba-Ahmed’s analysis provides a roadmap. The ADC—or any aspiring alternative—must: 1) Define itself by policy, not personality; 2) Build a coalition of ideas, not just interests; 3) Embrace and represent the nation’s youth demographic; and 4) Present itself as a ready government, not just a critical opposition. The demise of the PDP as a default alternative has made the 2027 political field more unpredictable and has set a higher, more substantive bar for any party that hopes to truly challenge the status quo.
<!– 
–>