Fresh defections from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and mounting criticism from northern political heavyweights are fuelling concerns that President Bola Tinubu could face a repeat of the “Jonathan treatment” in 2027.
In Zamfara, former senator Kabiru Marafa—once a key coordinator of Tinubu’s campaign announced his resignation from the APC alongside his entire political structure across the state’s 147 wards.
Marafa accused the Tinubu administration of “sustained injustice, mistrust, marginalisation and deliberate neglect of Zamfara and its people.”
His camp pointed to worsening insecurity, with Zamfara recording 1,203 out of 4,722 kidnappings nationwide in 2024, including 25 villages attacked in a single week that left 145 people abducted and 21 dead.
They alleged the state has been overlooked in federal relief interventions despite its high casualty figures.
A similar political shake-up unfolded in Jigawa, where 289 APC members defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Sakwaya Ward, Dutse Local Government Area—a move PDP leaders hailed as “a significant boost” ahead of the 2027 polls.
The exits appeared to vindicate former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai, who had warned Tinubu against alienating the North before quitting APC for the African Democratic Congress.
In a widely circulated piece titled 2027: South West, Tinubu’s supporters playing with fire, El-Rufai cautioned: “More than the performance or lack thereof of the Jonathan administration, it was his attitude, and that of people around him, towards the North that ultimately brought him down.”
El-Rufai has since declared that the North “will go to any length” to block Tinubu’s re-election, underscoring the depth of northern discontent.
Borno South senator Ali Ndume has also drawn parallels with Jonathan’s defeat, warning that Tinubu may be lulled into complacency.
“Jonathan had 22 governors endorse him, just as Tinubu does now. Yet he lost woefully,” Ndume said, adding that the presidency is “dominated by kleptocrats and even kakistocrats” who shield Tinubu from the country’s realities.
Political analysts warn that these cracks, if left unchecked, could widen into a North–South rupture similar to the one that toppled the PDP in 2015.
Dr. Suleiman Bankole, a political scientist, stressed that Marafa’s departure is more than an individual act: “This is a wholesale withdrawal of a structure across Zamfara. In the North-West, grassroots mobilisation is everything. Such a loss signals deeper disillusionment within APC ranks.”
Public affairs analyst Lawal Ogunniyi agreed, arguing that economic hardship could become the party’s biggest vulnerability.
“When ruling party lawmakers openly speak of kleptocrats and kakistocrats around the president, it shows the discontent is internal. That is how political implosions begin,” she said.
Contacted on the matter, APC national publicity secretary Felix Morka declined comment.
With defections spreading at the grassroots and northern heavyweights signalling open rebellion, observers warned that Tinubu’s challenge is no longer just governance but political survival.
They maintained that unless urgent steps are taken to repair frayed ties with the North, the APC could find itself on the same slippery path that doomed Jonathan in 2015.
