Indicators suggest that the much-talked-about coalition of opposition politicians is headed for trouble following the insistence of the group’s leading lights on contesting for the 2027 presidential ticket of the presumptive platform.

The Guardian learned that the prime movers of the coalition, including Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Chibuike Amaechi and Nasir El-Rufai, are making behind-the-scenes manoeuvres to ensure that the political accord does not bury their presidential aspirations.

This is just as the consideration of Social Democratic Party (SDP), and African Democratic Congress (ADC) as the tentative platform of choice of the coalition has been put in abeyance by the decision of conveners of League of Northern Democrats, Senator Ibrahim Shekarau and Dr Umar Ardo, to apply for the registration of an entirely new political party.

It was also gathered that the issues of logo and colour format have also become a source of new worries within the fold of the new party advocates, despite their resolution on adopting the name All Democrat Alliance (ADA) instead of League of National Democrats (LND).

However, contrary to suggestions in the media that the ADA has been adopted as the platform of choice by the Coalition, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar stated that nothing of the sort has happened, even as he cautioned media practitioners to verify their facts before publishing reports.

Atiku, who spoke through his Special Assistant on Media, Abdulrasheed Shehu, said ADA has neither been registered as a political party nor adopted by the coalition partners.

However, in an interview with The Guardian on the development, Dr Umar Ardo, who contested the 2023 Adamawa gubernatorial poll on the SDP platform, stated that his group had marshalled convincing reasons why registering a new political party presents the best way forward for the coalition.

He disclosed that Atiku is among those trying to merge the coalition into an existing political party, pointing out that the option is fraught with numerous hurdles and landmines.

Ardo stated, “You know, many people misunderstand our position. We are part of a coalition, and there are two viewpoints in that coalition with regard to how to project the politics towards 2027.

“I belong to the tendency that prefers registering a new one. The League of National Democrats belongs to the group seeking the registration of a new one. And, we made our position known. We presented our arguments. We showed the advantages of registering a new political party side by side with the disadvantages of entering into an already existing political party.

“We, therefore, recommended that the coalition approve the registration of a new political party. It will be the surest way of getting victory at the polls. So, that is it. We are trying to placate or convince the National Opposition Coalition Group to unite on our viewpoint, to unite in registering a new political party. That way, the political party belongs to everybody in the opposition.”

However, a source within the group told The Guardian that Ardo was doing everything in his power to ensure that the coalition does not agree with Atiku, who prefers the merger into an existing party to the registration of a new one.

“What you see at the play between the two is 2027 ambition. Atiku has left no one in doubt that he wants to contest again in 2027. For Ardo, he believes that the former Vice President wants Senator Aisha Dahiru Ahmed (Binani) as his preferred candidate for the 2027 gubernatorial contest in their native Adamawa State,” the source said.

Also, a founding member of All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Osita Okechukwu, said that the promoters of ADA could fall back on the Supreme Court ruling, which indicated that a prospective application for the registration of a new party could override the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) if the commission fails to recognise them after one month.

Okechukwu, who is formerly the Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), argued that although the promoters of the new party would scale the hurdle of registration, they would encounter greater difficulty in managing the ambitions of its members.

He said: “Recently, the ADA promoters flew the kite that by 2027 the South will have presided over Nigeria for 17 years, whilst the North will have presided for only 11 years.

“This fraudulent calculation is purely based on conviction bias, especially when we recall that the proper calculation is that the North has presided over Nigeria for more years since independence in 1960 than the South.

“That the North has presided over Nigeria more than the south was the premise that people of goodwill and patriotic Nigerian politicians considered before instituting the rotation convention that the Presidency should rotate from North to South and vice versa in 1999.”

The former DG added that even if the ADA decides to nominate a Southerner as a presidential candidate to respect the rotation convention, their expansive appetite for power will cloud their vision and broad-mindedness in accommodating individuals from the PDP, APGA, NNPP, and Labour Party.

“It is this unbridled and massive desperation for power that would sing their nunc dimitis of the ADA experiment and attempt to walk in the steps of APC. The promoters of ADA are neither patriotic nor statesmanlike in their approach to national politics,” he declared.