The Coffin Is Nailed: Why the ADC Coalition Spells the End of Tinubu’s Second-Term Dream
By Kunle Oshobi
There are moments in politics when the tectonic plates shift so dramatically that even the most powerful incumbents must recalibrate. Nigeria is living in one of those moments. On March 30, 2026, former Kano governor and 2023 presidential candidate Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso posted two words on his X handle, “New Dawn. We are ADC” and in doing so, wrote the opening sentence of the obituary of Bola Tinubu’s second-term ambitions.
Kwankwaso is the latest major challenger from the 2023 presidential race to join the African Democratic Congress, the platform the opposition coalition has adopted to wrestle power from the APC in 2027. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party’s Peter Obi had already made the move. For the first time in Nigerian political history, the three men who collectively represent the broadest cross-section of the country’s electorate, the old North, the new North, and the South-East, are rowing in the same direction. The implications are seismic.
The Mathematics of a Stolen Victory, Now Corrected
The 2023 election was not lost because Nigerians chose Tinubu. It was lost because the millions who rejected him divided their votes three ways. Tinubu won with approximately 8.79 million votes. Atiku received 6.98 million, Obi 6.1 million, and Kwankwaso nearly 1.5 million. Together, the three men accumulated nearly 15 million votes, which were nearly double Tinubu’s total votes, yet each fell short individually. The ADC coalition corrects that single, fatal error. United behind Atiku Abubakar as flagbearer, their combined electoral machine could outperform Tinubu’s 2023 total by a factor of two, even before we factor in the millions of supporters that Tinubu has lost across the country due to his poor performance in office.
Blood, Fear, and Failure: The Insecurity Catastrophe
If the economy is the wound that bleeds Tinubu’s presidency slowly, insecurity is the one that bleeds it fast. No single issue has more viscerally eroded public confidence in this administration than its inability, or unwillingness, to keep Nigerians safe. The statistics are not just alarming; they are a national indictment.
The 2026 Global Terrorism Index ranks Nigeria as the fourth most terror-affected country in the world, with Nigeria accounting for a disproportionate share of global terrorism deaths, and recording one of the two largest increases in terror fatalities globally. ACLED data covering May 2023 to May 2025 records 7,472 killed and 12,584 abducted by terror and bandit groups alone. The 2024 peak saw over 3,100 fatalities and 2,562 kidnappings across 916 incidents. Between January 1 and February 10, 2026, alone, 1,258 people were killed due to violence.
The horror is not confined to statistics. In November 2025, at least 402 people, mostly schoolchildren, were kidnapped across four states in the north-central region, surpassing even the infamous 2014 Chibok abduction by Boko Haram in scale. In late January 2026, more than 160 worshippers were abducted, and on February 3, an armed group attacked two Muslim-majority villages in Kwara State, killing over 160 people. On February 5, terrorists attacked the village of Woro, killing more than 100 people and kidnapping 176.
These are not isolated incidents. They are symptoms of a state that has lost its grip on its most fundamental obligation: the protection of its citizens. By mid-2025, Nigeria’s security situation had drifted far from the early, limited wins of the Tinubu administration. What unfolded instead was a year defined by jihadist infiltration from the Sahel, the re-emergence of mass abductions, and the growing sense that Nigeria’s northern frontiers were dangerously porous.
The response from Abuja has been more rhetorical than substantive. Tinubu vowed to “show no mercy” to terrorists and bandits in his 2026 budget speech, promising to “fundamentally change” how the government confronts violent crime. But Nigerians have heard this language before. Such mass abductions are not just crimes, they are symbols of state failure, instantly undoing any claims of improved security.
When the United States launched cruise missile strikes inside Nigerian territory in Sokoto State in December 2025 to take out terrorist targets that the Nigerian military had failed to neutralise, the humiliation was complete. America has since stationed 200 troops and MQ-9 drones as of March 2026 to support counter-terrorism operations in the country, a development that speaks volumes about the collapse of Nigeria’s internal security capacity under this administration.
Even voices from within Tinubu’s own political constituency are alarmed. Prominent Islamic cleric Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, a known government interlocutor, stated bluntly in a television interview that the Tinubu regime and its security agencies have the intelligence to stop the insecurity but choose not to do so. When a man who has negotiated with bandits on behalf of the state accuses the state of deliberate inaction, no presidential spin can undo the damage.
For voters in the North, the same North that Tinubu desperately needs to contest in 2027, insecurity is not a policy debate. It is personal. It is the schoolchild who has not come home. It is the farmer who abandoned his land. It is the market woman afraid to travel. These voters will not be persuaded by budget allocations or foreign military partnerships. They will vote from the gut, and their gut tells them that this government has failed to protect them.
A Coalition Built for This Moment
Against this backdrop of economic hardship and unchecked bloodshed, the ADC coalition is perfectly positioned. Atiku Abubakar brings to the 2027 race three decades of national political infrastructure, unmatched fundraising capacity, and the grievance of a man many believe was robbed of victory in 2023. Kwankwaso delivers the North-West — Kano alone, where he commands almost religious loyalty, could swing the election. Peter Obi’s Obidient Movement energises the South-East and urban youth across the country. Together, they cover a map that the APC simply cannot counter.
As one political analyst observed, many who voted for Tinubu in 2023 are now deeply disappointed. They voted for promises that were not fulfilled, watched the naira collapse, saw inflation surge, and now live in a country more dangerous than the one they voted in. The coalition does not need to grow its base dramatically, it simply needs to retain its 2023 voters while absorbing the millions of disillusioned former Tinubu supporters looking for an exit.
The ADC’s emergence also recalls a pivotal moment in Nigerian political history. In 2013, a coalition of opposition governors and politicians came together under the APC to defeat an incumbent for the first time in Nigeria’s democratic history. The formula then was a unifying candidate, a new platform, and a population exhausted by governance failure. That formula is identical today, only the names have changed. The man who co-engineered the 2015 political earthquake now finds himself on the receiving end of the same playbook.
Conclusion: The People Have Had Enough
Atiku Abubakar enters the 2027 race not merely as a candidate but as the vessel for the accumulated frustrations of a nation that is poorer, hungrier, and more endangered than it has been in a generation. With over 15 million 2023 votes to consolidate, a geographic coalition that covers every zone, and a national mood defined by two overwhelming desires; economic relief and physical safety, the ADC is not just a political party. It is a referendum on whether Nigeria will survive its present trajectory.
Tinubu can deploy the instruments of incumbency. He can spend. He can pressure. He can promise. But he cannot escape the one question every Nigerian voter will ask in 2027: Are we safer, and are we better off? The answer, resoundingly, is no. And in a democracy, that answer always finds its way to the ballot box.
The new dawn Kwankwaso proclaimed is not just a slogan. For millions of Nigerians living in fear and poverty, it is a lifeline, and they will vote for it with both hands.
Kunle Oshobi is the Head of Strategy and Planning of the Narrative Force
