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Atiku Rejects Zoning 2027 Presidency to the South, Warns It Will Hand Tinubu Victory — Pat Utomi Fires Back, Accuses Former VP of "Selective Opportunism"
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has cautioned opposition parties against zoning the 2027 ticket to the South, drawing a sharp response from Pat Utomi's Big Tent Coalition.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has warned opposition parties against zoning the 2027 presidential ticket to the South, arguing that fielding a southern candidate against an incumbent of the same region would be a political gift to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. In a position paper circulated by his camp on Tuesday, the 2023 PDP presidential candidate insisted that the opposition's best chance of unseating the APC lay in presenting a northern candidate, a calculation that has drawn fierce backlash from the Big Tent Coalition led by Professor Pat Utomi, who accused Atiku of "selective opportunism" and a pattern of supporting zoning only when it advances his personal ambition.
Atiku's argument rests on electoral mathematics. His strategists contend that the combined votes of the North‑West and North‑East — regions that have historically produced Nigeria's highest turnouts — cannot be mobilised for a southern opposition candidate when the APC already fields a southerner. "Fielding another southerner against Tinubu would be political suicide," a source in Atiku's camp told Unuevbo TV. "It cedes the northern vote to the APC by default." But Utomi's coalition, which is pushing for a broad‑based opposition ticket that could include figures like Peter Obi or Seyi Makinde, fired back that Atiku's sudden defence of northern interests is transparently self‑serving. "This is a man who has contested under zoning arrangements his entire career and now seeks to tear up the principle the moment it no longer favours him," a coalition statement read. ADC chieftain Dele Momodu also weighed in, calling the entire zoning debate a "deliberate distraction" from the real crises of insecurity and economic collapse gripping the nation.
The row underscores a growing fracture within the opposition over how to construct a winning coalition for 2027. With Jonathan formally in the PDP race, Makinde preparing his own declaration, and Obi and Kwankwaso aligning with the NDC, the opposition faces a crowded field and a fundamental disagreement over whether geography or individual appeal should determine the candidate. Atiku's intervention ensures that the zoning debate will remain at the centre of the pre‑election conversation — and that the fractures it exposes will be as consequential as any campaign speech.
Stay tuned to Unuevbo TV for more on the 2027 opposition coalition talks, the zoning controversy, and the political manoeuvres reshaping Nigeria's presidential race.
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