Nigerian actor and political activist, Kenneth Okonkwo, has warned that without key electoral reforms, defeating President Bola Tinubu at the polls would be nearly impossible, unless the opposition fields a northern candidate.
Speaking during an interview on Arise TV on Monday, Okonkwo criticised the current state of the electoral system and emphasized the strategic need to present a viable challenger from the North, rather than a fresh candidate from the South-East.
“I do not believe that we are going to have a free, credible election in 2027,” he said. “I don’t believe it because the electoral reforms have not been done. So you have only manually generated collated results where all the fraud takes place.”
Okonkwo argued that the power dynamics have shifted since 2023 and that defeating an incumbent like Tinubu—who commands state resources and institutional backing—requires more than popular sentiment.
“In 2023, you didn’t have an incumbent. The power was in the North. Now in 2027, there is an incumbent who has publicly elicited that he knows how to take power by force, grab it, snatch it, and run away with it,” he said.
He questioned the strategic logic of fielding a candidate from the South-East, given the region’s limited institutional clout and lack of broader northern support.
“Why would you want to take somebody from the Southeast who does not have an army, who does not have the Navy, who does not have the Air Force to go and confront somebody from the Southwest?” he asked. “And you think the North will now back you — a fresh candidate — that they do not even believe may keep to the terms of the agreement?”
According to Okonkwo, the path to disrupting Tinubu’s regime lies in mirroring the 2015 strategy employed by Tinubu himself, who aligned with then-candidate Muhammadu Buhari to secure northern votes.
“That was what Tinubu did,” Okonkwo noted. “In 2015, he went and brought Mohamed Buhari, knowing that against a southern candidate, Buhari would have 12 million votes already. So he just needed little votes from the South to push him in.”
While Okonkwo acknowledged that the African Democratic Congress (ADC) coalition platform has opened its presidential ticket to all regions through a free and fair primary, he admitted that it is his personal preference for a northern candidate to become the ADC flagbearer.
“It is not ADC saying they prefer a northern candidate. No. It is my own preference and strategy because that’s the only way to win Tinubu in the election,” he explained.
According to Okonkwo, his political views are grounded in realism, not idealism. “You have to be pragmatic. I am a politician existing in pragmatism. Activists exist in idealism,” he said. “If Tinubu had done well, in all honesty, I would go home and sleep. But you cannot choose a Muslim-Muslim ticket, the economy running riot, insecurity going everywhere, and we want to give you eight years?”