The All Progressives Congress (APC) has dismissed efforts by opposition parties to field a consensus presidential candidate for the 2027 election, accusing former vice-president Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of putting personal ambitions ahead of the interest of Nigeria.

APC National Secretary, Senator Ajibola Basiru, said the opposition coalition would fail because its leading presidential contenders were unlikely to surrender their individual ambitions for a single candidate.

Basiru spoke against the backdrop of Monday’s opposition summit in Abuja, where seven political parties and their allies met to strengthen cooperation ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

The meeting was convened by the G-100 group as part of efforts to build a broad opposition alliance capable of challenging President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is seeking a second term.

However, Atiku, who is the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), and Obi, the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), were absent from the gathering. Their running mates were also not present.

The APC national secretary described the development as evidence that the proposed opposition alliance lacked the cohesion required to produce a single presidential candidate.

He likened the situation to a maize grain trapped inside a bottle, saying it would be impossible for the opposition to achieve its objective.

“They cannot get a single candidate. Their case is like a maize inside a bottle that hens cannot eat. That is the analogy,” Basiru said.

He accused opposition politicians of pursuing what he described as selfish political interests rather than a genuine commitment to national development.

According to him, the failure of the opposition parties to reach an agreement before their respective primaries showed that their current attempt to produce a consensus candidate would be difficult to achieve.

“In the build-up to the primaries, they could not come together. They went their separate ways. They are not driven by the love for Nigeria, but by a selfish agenda,” he said.

Basiru added that with presidential candidates already emerging on different party platforms, the proposal for a single candidate amounted to shutting the stable after the horse had bolted.

“The truth is that candidates have emerged on the platforms of all political parties. It is laughable for anybody to now say he or she wants to have a single candidature.

“It is like closing the stable when the horse has already escaped,” he said.

He further argued that the opposition leaders would struggle to agree on which candidate should step down because of their individual ambitions.

“For us in the ruling party, their gathering was more of a publicity stunt than actual political relevance,” Basiru said.

The APC national secretary also criticised Atiku over his recent attacks on Tinubu, particularly on the President’s age and his position on petrol subsidy.

He accused the former vice-president of adopting inconsistent strategies in his attempt to undermine the President’s political standing.

Basiru maintained that the opposition lacked the policy blueprint and political strength to match the APC ahead of the 2027 election.

Also reacting to the opposition gathering, APC National Publicity Secretary Felix Morka described the coalition effort as a fruitless exercise, arguing that the absence of the major opposition figures demonstrated the lack of unity within the camp.

“The absence of the principal actors at the gathering was enough to show that their move hit the rock before the journey even began,” Morka said.

He predicted that the opposition parties would suffer a heavier defeat in 2027 than they did in the 2023 presidential election.

“They will be roundly rejected at the polls again. The defeat they suffered in 2023 was child’s play compared to what Nigerians will do to them in 2027,” he said.

The latest opposition summit followed previous attempts to forge a united platform against the APC. One such effort was the April 25 summit in Ibadan, hosted by Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde, which also failed to produce a single opposition presidential candidate.

Meanwhile, the ADC sought to downplay the focus on a consensus presidential candidate, saying the Abuja meeting was broader than the question of who would fly the opposition’s joint ticket.

ADC National Publicity Secretary Bolaji Abdullahi said the parties discussed several areas of cooperation and that producing a single candidate was only one possible outcome.

“To the best of our knowledge, there were so many things on the agenda beyond producing a single presidential candidate,” Abdullahi said.

He added that if the discussions eventually produced a single candidate, it would be welcomed, but stressed that such an outcome was not the central objective of the meeting.