IN just a few days, the faces of those who have scaled the hurdles of primaries in their respective political parties will be officially unveiled. Though we can’t completely rule out a few surprises here and there, especially across the states, the 2027 presidential election is already looking like a definite three-horse race.
Barring an unexpected shift in the current calculations, there are strong indications that the momentum around former President Goodluck Jonathan’s possible comeback may have crashed prematurely, even before gathering, which leaves Nigerians with something close to the 2023 ballot scenario.
The difference is that, aside from the incumbent President Bola Tinubu, who naturally maintains his All Progressives Congress platform, the other three frontline candidates in the 2023 presidential contest – Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso – have since relocated from their last known addresses to environments considered more conducive to their 2027 ambitions.
While Obi and Kwankwaso have both regrouped under the same Nigeria Democratic Congress platform, after a brief but unrewarding stint in the African Democratic Congress, Atiku is now firmly in the ADC, where he will most likely clinch the presidential ticket. Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has also declared his intention to contest the 2027 presidential election under the Allied Peoples Movement, but many analysts see the move more as a spoiler game for Tinubu and a survival strategy to preserve his political capital amid the Peoples Democratic Party’s leadership conundrum. So, the choice for citizens, either fortunately or unfortunately, remains between Tinubu, Atiku and Obi.
As the Independent National Electoral Commission prepares to draw the curtain on party candidacy, therefore, the least citizens could do is to ensure active participation in the process that will determine who, among the top three contenders, will occupy the Aso Rock Villa for the next four years. In doing so, Nigerians of voting age must ponder the question: Who, among the anticipated contenders, will give Nigeria something close to the economy it desires?
The choice, for now, until subsequent cycles, when we may have stronger fresh contenders, and not the same old faces, would be between the tolerable and the disastrous, as I indicated in the first part of this article.
In reaction to my main position in that article, the chairman of a leading financial information hub on Nigeria’s economy and financial market space, who may not want his name mentioned here, said the country’s binding constraints were not personality-shaped.
“A revenue-to-GDP ratio of roughly 9 to 10 per cent, a debt-service-to-revenue ratio that touched 113 per cent in early 2025, total public debt of N159.28tn, and a poverty headcount, which the World Bank places at about 139 million Nigerians, sit independently of whoever occupies Aso Rock,” he argued.
According to him, growth at 3.9 per cent in the first half of 2025 against a “five times” acceleration requirement to achieve the Federal Government’s goal of attaining a $1tn economy by 2030 “is a more honest scoreboard than the cyclical contrast between the Jonathan era oil boom expansion and the Buhari era contraction highlighted in the piece”.
He said, “The economy Nigeria deserves will be built less by the President’s biography and more by the durability of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, tax reform implementation, monetary policy independence, subnational creditworthiness, and the quality of public investment.
“Voters who weigh candidates against this scorecard, rather than against tribal or sentimental anchors, will get a clearer lead on who can move the country an inch closer to the economy you correctly say it deserves.”
After reading his reaction over again, I concluded that “too much book” might have prevented ‘my brilliant egbon’, as I fondly call him, from seeing that he is actually saying the same thing in a way he believes will stress the current state of the Nigerian economy and the need for modest gains to be consolidated and improved upon.
As an economist, I share his views, as I have always pointed out, and agree that these considerations are necessary in deciding on the preferred Nigerian president. But how can the nation ensure all he has enumerated, from the durability of the Fiscal Responsibility Act to sound tax reform implementation and subnational creditworthiness, among others, if political will is next to zero?
How will a president who understands little or nothing about these workings, has no eye for professionals that can fill the void, or who is more concerned about growing personal fortune at the expense of the nation’s resources, effectively drive the desired economic scenario he has so beautifully painted?
To decide whether President Tinubu deserves a second chance, for instance, Nigerians may need to ask: Has he delivered, to a satisfactory level, the renewed hope he promised Nigerians, bearing in mind global constraints and the widely acknowledged rot he inherited from the previous APC administration? Are economists satisfied with the level of actual growth under his administration, compared to potential or paper growth? With about $52bn external debt, and huge resources reportedly freed as a result of oil subsidy removal, has Nigeria been able to enhance its Human Development Index by ensuring efficient utilisation of available resources? Does he need more time to consolidate on gains and put the country firmly on the path of sustainable growth?
Inasmuch as these are concerns to consider before making a voting decision, these questions, and more, cannot be objectively answered if there are no effective monitoring mechanisms to track allocations, project implementation and “before and after” positions of Nigeria’s economic health. So, the buck still stops with citizens. Nigerians must do more than complain.
The other frontline contenders are also not new to this business of governance. Beyond the bandwagon and candidate frenzy on social media, honest research should be done around the HDI and efficient allocation/utilisation of resources, among other verifiable feats recorded against the names of Atiku, Obi and Kwankwaso when they held power at different levels. Of course, this assessment should also consider how the President fared in Lagos State before his current assignment.
Honest results should free Nigerians, a bit, from the difficult position of choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea.
It is an indisputable fact that the leadership qualities of whoever occupies the No 1 seat in Nigeria after the polls will determine the slant of its economic progress, going forward. No one needs binoculars to detect real growth. The economic jargon that we continuously display to establish growth will remain the mumbo jumbo that they are until they are translated into visibly enhanced standards of living for the poor majority.
- Dr Kolapo is publisher of The Point and her column, Compass, runs on the back page of the Punch newspaper on Monday. The column appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Tuesday.