Ovation Magazine publisher and former presidential aspirant, Dele Momodu, has said that the only viable strategy for the opposition to defeat President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election is to zone the presidency to the Muslim North and the vice presidency to the Christian South.
Momodu stated this on Friday while speaking in an interview on Arise Television, where he analysed the current political landscape and the ruling All Progressives Congress’s (APC) stronghold.
According to him, President Tinubu has already secured dominance in the South, making it extremely difficult for any southern presidential candidate to challenge him effectively.
“It’s obvious that the ruling government has already turned this into an ethnic battle, and it’s going to be a battle of North versus South,” Momodu said.
“That is why you saw PDP and APC apparatchiks all struggling to insist that a candidate must come from the South. They know that President Tinubu has already locked down the South, and nobody, not Peter Obi, not Goodluck Jonathan, will be able to catch up with him where he is right now,” he added.
The Ovation publisher argued that Tinubu’s immense financial resources and control of state structures put him at a major advantage ahead of the 2027 polls. He noted that only a strategic counterbalance from the North could tip the scale in favour of the opposition.
Momodu also dismissed concerns that such zoning would violate the principle of fairness or power rotation, explaining that the notion of an eight-year turn for the North and South was not enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution.
He maintained that the opposition must be pragmatic rather than emotional if it truly hopes to mount a credible challenge against the incumbent president in 2027.