2027: PDP Sends Ticket South. The North Splinters. The Plot Thickens.

By: Oluwaseun Lawal

It started on a Monday. A neat room. A long agenda. For the 102nd time, the PDP’s National Executive Committee had a meeting and drew a thick line on the Southern map. That’s where the 2027 presidential ticket will go. The current National Working Committee? It stays. Umar Damagum keeps the wheel. A simple sentence on paper. A storm in the field.

By nightfall, phones were burning. Some northern leaders nodded, said yes, let’s heal the country, let’s rotate, let’s move. Others bristled. Not fair. Not now. Not like this. Politics in Nigeria doesn’t just run. It breathes. It argues. It calculates. And this decision poked a lot of ribs at once.

In Kaduna and Abuja, youth coalitions and old hands read the same memo and saw different futures. Yerima Shettima of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum didn’t mince words. In his telling, the party cramped the race before it even began. Why shrink the field? Why tell capable northern contenders to sit out? It feels like a right being clipped, he said. There’s a risk here, a big one. A North that feels boxed out can swing. Maybe even swing toward the incumbent. Strange? Maybe. But politics is a creature of moods.

Others took a colder, more tactical view. If President Tinubu is set to seek a second term, they argued, the PDP just made his life a bit easier in the North. He knows the turf. He has a machine. Incumbency isn’t everything, but it’s something. And where the PDP once banked on northern mass, a zoning line could redirect the tide or fragment it. No one loves uncertainty. But that’s what we’ve got.

Then came the North Central. The region that often breaks a tie and carries a burden. Leaders under the North Central Renaissance Movement said, not again. They’ve waited. And waited. No civilian president. No vice president. Decades of service, little top billing. They didn’t threaten chaos; they made a moral case. Not North versus South, they argued. Fairness within both. If not now, when? Their tone was steady but the message is sharp. Respect is due.

Youths under the Joint Action Committee of Northern Youth Associations sharpened it further. They called the zoning move unjust. Anti-democratic. A betrayal of the loyalty the region poured into the party since 1999. Harsh? Yes. But it’s how some feel. Feelings drive turnout. Or kill it.

The Coalition of Northern Groups struck a principle: let it be open. Everyone runs. Best idea wins. That’s the dream, right. But politics runs on bargains too. One of their leaders reminded the party of an old equilibrium: when chairmanship is North, the presidential flag goes South, and vice versa. Jam both into one corner and you lose balance. And trust. Yet even within CNG, there was a shrug of realpolitik: parties choose strategies, even risky ones. They live with them.

Not everybody in the North is shouting stop. The Arewa Consultative Forum, the sober uncle in the room, said it’s too early to lock in positions. Things are moving. Calculations are still soft. Elections are a long road and the engines haven’t even warmed. Patience, please.

There’s also the long memory. Former ACF scribe, Anthony Sani, noted a twist from 2023: zoning and regional moods helped Tinubu bite into northern votes against Atiku. Lessons like that don’t fade fast. Sani hinted at a timeline bargain. If the presidency cycles northward in 2031, some may just hold their breath and wait. Strategic waiting is still strategy.

On the flip side, some southern-leaning voices inside the PDP are done waiting. Bukola Saraki’s camp framed the choice as balance restored. Eight years under Buhari. A northern ticket also in 2019 and 2023 for the PDP. So yes, pass the torch. Give the South a clean shot. Simple math. Calmer air.

But not everyone sings that tune. Yusuf Dingyadi called the decision ill-timed. The party, he warned, needed unity first. Muscle. A house mended. Instead, it rushed into zoning and risked peeling off northern loyalists. He went further, accusing power blocs—yes, the Wike orbit—of steering too much, too fast. He said the party feels like a marketplace. Highest bidder wins. That stings.

In the Middle Belt, the mood is different. The Middle Belt Forum backed the move firmly. Rules matter, they said. PDP has a rotation ethos since 1999. It broke that rhythm in 2023. This is the correction. Heal the ranks. Bring the G‑5 back in. Protect the tradition. Build a path to power. Pragmatic. And also a bit hopeful.

From Niger to Kwara to Yobe, party chieftains talked about balance. If the chair stays North, the flag goes South. That’s the deal. That’s what we agreed. One Yobe voice even floated a bold card: maybe Goodluck Jonathan returns to complete a tenure. Big idea. Bigger question marks. But that’s how political kites are flown—see who looks up, who frowns, who smiles.

Down in Nasarawa, a Christian political forum threw its weight behind a southern candidate. They see rotation as inclusion. As grace shared. They remember the northern presidencies of the past. They see Tinubu in office now. They want freshness next time. New energy. New ideas. It sounds idealistic. It also sounds like a voter talking, not a chessboard.

So here we are. The PDP drew a line. The North didn’t answer with one voice. Some say yes, let’s rotate. Others say open the gate wide. A few whisper, let’s sit tight until 2031. Meanwhile, the APC watches. Quiet, maybe smiling. Maybe wary. Because this could still break either way.

Politics in Nigeria is a long story told in short bursts. One meeting. One memo. Then a hundred pressers. You can feel the ground shift, even if it’s just an inch. Today, the ticket is South. Tomorrow, alliances will form and un-form. The numbers will be counted. Emotions will cool. Or they won’t. And the voter, as usual, will have the last word. Or at least, the loudest one.