2027 Race Heats Up: PDP Confirms Southern Presidential Ticket, Validating Wike's Prophecy

The recent resolution by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Executive Committee (NEC) to zone the party's 2027 presidential ticket to the South while retaining the National Chairman in the North has been widely interpreted as a significant vindication of the stance taken by the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike, and the G-5 group in 2022. This decision, announced in 2025, reflects the very principles that Wike and his allies advocated for three years prior, raising questions about the party's initial resistance and its subsequent reversal.
According to Lere Olayinka, the Minister’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and Social Media, the party has now acknowledged its past error by adopting the very strategy that Wike and the G-5 had championed. In 2022, the core demand of Wike and the G-5 was a fundamental principle of equitable power distribution: that the PDP's presidential candidate and its National Chairman should not originate from the same geopolitical zone. Specifically, with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, a northerner, emerging as the presidential candidate, they insisted that Senator Iyorchia Ayu, who was also from the North and serving as National Chairman, ought to resign. This proposed resignation was intended to pave the way for a National Chairman from the Southern region, thereby balancing the party's leadership structure.
However, these calls for a Southern National Chairman were met with staunch opposition, particularly from Ayu himself and his supporters within Atiku's camp. The party's refusal to heed the G-5's advice led to significant internal dissent and, ultimately, a series of unfortunate events. The aftermath of this rigid stance was evident in the party's electoral misfortunes during the 2023 general elections, which were further compounded by a period of instability within the party structures post-election.
Fast forward to 2025, the PDP NEC has now formally resolved that, given the National Chairman of the party is zoned to the North, the party’s 2027 Presidential ticket must consequently be zoned to the South. This belated adoption of the G-5's original blueprint has led observers to ponder if the PDP is, in essence, 'eating its own vomit' after realizing the cost of its earlier oversight. While acknowledging the truth of the G-5's position, the critical question remains whether this correction, made three years after the initial contention, is coming too late to effectively alter the party's political trajectory. Furthermore, the long-term implications of this zoning decision, particularly regarding the need for the South to complete an eight-year presidential term before the presidency potentially returns to the North in 2031, add another layer of complexity to the PDP's current strategy.
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