A Centre for Contemporary Studies Interrogation of the Emerging Electoral Narrative
By Yusuf Musa
Chairman, Chief Executive — Centre for Contemporary Studies (CCS), Abuja-Nigeria
(Posting from Gwandu in Kebbi State on Pre-Election Assessment Tour)
There is a growing narrative around the 2027 presidential election that deserves serious interrogation.
The argument is essentially this: Atiku Abubakar will dominate the North; Peter Obi, strengthened by Rabiu Kwankwaso and the NDC structure, will dominate the South; President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will suffer a substantial northern deficit and therefore depend almost entirely on the South; and if Obi succeeds in protecting his votes, particularly in the South-East and Lagos, he will win the presidency.
It is an interesting political thesis.
But it is not yet an established electoral fact.
The Centre for Contemporary Studies believes the more responsible question is not who appears popular today?, but whether the political, demographic and electoral arithmetic supports the conclusion being drawn from that popularity.
And on that basis, some parts of this perception are compelling, while others require substantial revision.
- First: The 2023 Baseline Must Be Correctly Understood
The 2023 presidential election produced the following national results:
| Candidate | Party | 2023 Votes | States Won |
| Bola Tinubu | APC | 8,794,726 | 12 states |
| Atiku Abubakar | PDP / ADC | 6,984,520 | 12 states |
| Peter Obi | LP / NDC | 6,101,533 | 11 states + FCT |
| Rabiu Kwankwaso | NNPP | 1,496,687 | Kano |
Tinubu won 12 states, Atiku 12 states, Obi 11 states plus the FCT, while Kwankwaso won Kano.
The regional numbers are even more revealing:
| Zone | Tinubu | Atiku | Obi | Kwankwaso |
| North Central | 1.761m | 1.162m | 1.416m | 60k |
| North East | 1.185m | 1.738m | 315k | 126k |
| North West | 2.652m | 2.330m | 350k | 1.268m |
| Total North | 5.599m | 5.230m | 2.081m | 1.454m |
| South East | 127k | 91k | 1.953m | 8k |
| South South | 800k | 718k | 1.211m | 17k |
| South West | 2.279m | 942k | 846k | 17k |
| Total South | 3.207m | 1.751m | 4.010m | 42k |
These figures immediately challenge two propositions in the circulating analysis.
First, Atiku did not get merely 5.1 million votes in the North in 2023; he got approximately 5.23 million.
Second, Tinubu did not get less than 4.5 million votes in the North; he got approximately 5.60 million.
The 2027 question is therefore not whether Atiku can suddenly become the dominant northern candidate or whether Tinubu has no northern base.
Both already demonstrated substantial northern bases in 2023.
The real question is how those bases will move in 2027.
- Can Atiku Reach 5.5–6.5 Million in the North?
Yes.
This is one of the more plausible elements of the projection.
Atiku already obtained about 5.23 million northern votes in 2023. Moving to 5.5–6.5 million would therefore require an increase of approximately 270,000 to 1.27 million votes. That is politically achievable.
But there is a major complication: Atiku is no longer running against Obi and Kwankwaso from the same opposition arrangement. The old coalition has fractured.
Atiku remains the ADC candidate, while Obi and Kwankwaso are now operating under the NDC. The ADC itself has publicly argued that Atiku can win without the previously contemplated opposition coalition.
Therefore, Atiku’s northern advantage must be tested against three variables:
- His personal northern network;
- The ADC’s organisational capacity;
- The extent to which Kwankwaso’s political machine remains available to him.
The third variable is particularly important. If Kwankwaso’s political structure is firmly aligned with Obi, Atiku cannot simply assume that his 2023 northern numbers will automatically rise.
- But the Claim That Atiku Will Get Only 300,000–600,000 in the South Is the Weakest Part of the Projection
This is where CCS significantly disagrees with the circulating assessment.
Atiku received approximately 1.75 million votes in the South in 2023. To fall to 300,000–600,000 would mean losing roughly two-thirds to four-fifths of his southern vote.
That is an enormous collapse.
It cannot simply be assumed because Obi is now the major opposition southern candidate. Atiku has political relationships, longstanding PDP structures, personal networks and significant recognition in the South.
More importantly, the South is not one political constituency. The South-East is different from the South-South. The South-South is different from the South-West. And the South-West cannot simply be treated as a homogeneous anti-Obi or pro-Tinubu bloc.
Therefore, Atiku’s southern vote may decline substantially, but a projection below one million requires much stronger evidence than is currently available.
- Peter Obi’s Northern Projection Is More Interesting
The argument that Obi can move from approximately 2.08 million northern votes in 2023 to 3–4 million deserves serious consideration.
It is not impossible. Indeed, the NDC configuration potentially gives Obi something he did not possess in 2023: Rabiu Kwankwaso’s northern political infrastructure.
Kwankwaso obtained approximately 1.50 million votes nationally in 2023, overwhelmingly concentrated in the North-West, particularly Kano.
If a meaningful portion of the Kwankwaso vote migrates to Obi, and if Obi retains his North-Central support while expanding among younger voters and Christian communities in parts of the North, 3 million northern votes becomes conceivable.
But 4 million would require more than enthusiasm. It would require actual vote conversion.
That means:
- registration;
- PVC collection;
- mobilisation;
- polling-unit presence;
- candidate-agent coverage;
- security;
- turnout;
- and effective protection of results.
This is where Nigerian elections are often won or lost.
- The South Is Not “Locked Down” for Obi
This is another point where CCS would caution against overconfidence.
Peter Obi has a formidable southern electoral base. The 2023 results demonstrate it. He won the five South-East states overwhelmingly, with approximately 1.95 million votes across the zone and 87.8 percent of the valid vote.
He also won the South-South overall with about 1.21 million votes and won the South-West state of Lagos.
But the same data show that Obi did not own the entire South in 2023. Atiku obtained about 1.75 million southern votes. Tinubu obtained approximately 3.21 million.
Therefore, the proposition that the South is automatically “locked down” for Obi is politically premature.
The better description is:
The South is Obi’s principal electoral reservoir, but it is not his exclusive electoral territory.
That distinction matters enormously.
- The South-East Is Probably Obi’s Strongest Foundation
Here the circulating assessment has considerable merit.
The five South-East states gave Obi extraordinary support in 2023. Anambra alone gave him 584,621 votes, approximately 95 percent of the valid votes cast. Abia, Enugu, Ebonyi and Imo also produced overwhelming Obi majorities.
It is therefore reasonable to regard the South-East as the foundation of Obi’s 2027 presidential campaign.
But even here, CCS would reject the assertion that the governors can obtain only 5 percent for APC or that 90 percent of the electorate is already guaranteed.
Governorship politics and presidential politics are different. Candidates who are unpopular at the presidential level can still possess powerful local political structures. Equally, governors can lose presidential votes while winning their own elections.
The 2027 South-East presidential contest will therefore be less about whether Obi has an advantage and more about how large that advantage actually becomes.
- Lagos Is the Critical Test
The Lagos argument is much more important than it may initially appear.
Obi won Lagos in 2023 with 584,454 votes against Tinubu’s 572,606 according to the declared results. That was symbolically significant.
Lagos demonstrated that Tinubu’s enormous political structure did not automatically translate into a presidential majority.
But 2027 is different. Tinubu is now the incumbent President. He has the institutional advantages of incumbency, a national political machine and significant influence within the APC.
Obi, on the other hand, has the advantage of having consolidated a political identity among many younger, urban and reform-oriented voters.
Therefore, Lagos may become one of the most closely watched states in Nigeria. The crucial question will not simply be:
“Who is more popular?”
It will be:
“Who converts popularity into actual votes?”
- The South-South Is the Great Variable
The South-South could become the most unpredictable component of the 2027 election.
Bayelsa, Rivers, Delta, Edo, Akwa Ibom and Cross River cannot be treated as one political block.
In 2023, Obi won Delta and Cross River and performed strongly in Edo and Bayelsa, while Atiku retained substantial support across the region. Tinubu also demonstrated that the APC could compete seriously in the South-South.
Consequently, Obi’s ability to move from approximately 1.21 million South-South votes in 2023 to a much higher figure could be decisive.
But again, the votes must first exist and then be successfully protected.
- “The South Will Decide the Election” Is Too Simple
This is perhaps the most important correction CCS would make.
The 2023 election does not support the proposition that the South alone will determine the presidency.
The three northern zones produced approximately 14.69 million valid votes in 2023. The three southern zones produced approximately 9.34 million. That is a significant difference.
The North therefore remains electorally indispensable.
The South is enormously important, but no serious presidential candidate can afford to treat the North as irrelevant.
The constitutional requirement for victory also makes geographical spread critical. Nigeria’s presidential election is not simply a referendum on who wins the South. A candidate must obtain the highest national vote and at least 25 percent in two-thirds of the states and the FCT.
Thus, a candidate can dominate one region and still lose the presidency.
- The Real Battle Is Not North Versus South
It is vote efficiency.
Consider the arithmetic. Suppose Obi obtains 6–7 million votes in the South and 3–4 million in the North. He could potentially reach 9–11 million votes. That would put him in a very competitive position.
But Atiku could also theoretically combine 5.5–6.5 million northern votes with a residual southern vote exceeding one million. That would also put him in the presidential conversation.
Tinubu, meanwhile, does not need to win the North overwhelmingly. If his northern vote declines from the 2023 level but his southern vote remains substantial, he can remain competitive.
This is why the 2027 election should not be analysed through the simplistic formula:
North = Atiku. South = Obi. Tinubu = nowhere.
That is not how Nigerian presidential elections work.
- The Biggest Variable May Actually Be Turnout
The 2023 presidential election had exceptionally low national turnout. Only about 26.7 percent of registered voters participated. That means millions of registered Nigerians did not vote.
Consequently, the decisive question for 2027 may be:
Which candidate can mobilise previously disengaged voters?
If Obi’s support is concentrated among voters who actually turn out, his vote can grow dramatically. If Atiku succeeds in rebuilding the northern PDP-era mobilisation networks through ADC, his vote can also increase. If APC succeeds in turning incumbency into turnout rather than merely political rallies, Tinubu can remain formidable.
This is why crowd sizes and political rallies are poor substitutes for electoral modelling.
- The “Hunger Will Produce Anti-Tinubu Votes” Argument Also Needs Caution
Economic hardship is undoubtedly an important political variable. Inflation, unemployment, insecurity, poverty, purchasing power and perceptions of corruption will influence voting behaviour.
But hardship does not automatically translate into a particular candidate’s votes.
Sometimes economic distress produces protest voting. Sometimes it produces abstention. Sometimes it produces vote buying. Sometimes it strengthens the incumbent’s argument that reforms require more time. And sometimes voters distinguish between dissatisfaction with government and confidence in the alternative.
Therefore, the 2027 election should not be reduced to:
“People are hungry, therefore they will vote against Tinubu.”
The more accurate formulation is:
Economic hardship creates an enlarged anti-incumbency constituency, but the opposition must still provide a credible vehicle through which that dissatisfaction can be converted into votes.
- The Most Dangerous Assumption Is That the Election Is Already Won
This applies to every camp.
Obi supporters cannot assume that popularity guarantees votes. Atiku supporters cannot assume that northern identity guarantees northern votes. APC cannot assume that governors automatically control presidential voters.
The 2023 election itself demonstrated the limits of political forecasting. There were delayed polling-unit openings, violence, vote buying, disputes over results transmission and serious controversies surrounding the collation process.
INEC’s formal process requires results to move from polling units through ward and LGA collation to the state level and ultimately national collation.
Therefore, electoral integrity and result management will be as important in 2027 as campaign popularity.
- CCS View: Obi Has the Most Interesting Growth Possibility
If we were forced to identify the candidate with the greatest potential for vote expansion relative to 2023, Peter Obi would deserve serious consideration.
Why? Because he begins with:
- an established southern base;
- an exceptionally strong South-East foundation;
- substantial urban youth support;
- the 2023 Obidient network;
- a demonstrated ability to win Lagos;
- and, critically, the political partnership with Kwankwaso.
The NDC configuration therefore potentially gives Obi access to constituencies that were beyond the practical reach of his 2023 campaign.
But this is potential — not victory.
- Atiku Remains a Much More Serious Candidate Than the Narrative Suggests
It would also be a mistake to write Atiku off. He remains one of the most experienced presidential candidates in Nigeria.
His 2023 performance was approximately 6.98 million votes nationally, including more than 5.2 million from the North.
His problem is not whether he can win votes. His problem is whether he can expand beyond his northern base sufficiently to defeat both Tinubu and Obi.
The ADC therefore faces a fundamental strategic question:
Can Atiku transform northern plurality into national majority?
That is the central Atiku question.
- Tinubu’s Problem Is Different
Tinubu is not starting from zero. He starts as an incumbent President who received 8.79 million votes in 2023. He also retains a substantial APC organisational network.
His challenge is that incumbency has now attached his name directly to the country’s economic and security performance.
In 2023, he was the candidate promising change. In 2027, he is the candidate defending a record. That is a fundamentally different electoral proposition.
Therefore, Tinubu must answer a simple question:
Can the benefits of his administration become sufficiently visible to voters before the election to outweigh the accumulated pain of economic adjustment and insecurity?
That may ultimately determine the APC’s fate.
- The Real 2027 Electoral Equation
CCS therefore sees the emerging election in the following terms:
| Camp | Strength | Weakness |
| Atiku / ADC | Northern depth, experience, established political network. | Difficulty converting northern strength into sufficient southern penetration; fragmentation of the opposition coalition. |
| Obi / NDC | Strong South-East base, significant southern appeal, youth mobilisation, Kwankwaso’s northern factor and potential anti-incumbency vote. | Risk of assuming popularity equals turnout; organisational weakness in some northern and rural areas; dependence on effective election-day protection. |
| Tinubu / APC | Incumbency, governors, national political machinery, established APC structure and significant 2023 northern and southern votes. | The incumbent carries the burden of the national economic and security record; anti-incumbency could consolidate otherwise fragmented opposition voters. |
- CCS’ Preliminary Conclusion
The 2027 presidential election is not yet a straight fight between Peter Obi and Bola Tinubu. That may eventually become the reality.
But as of today, Atiku Abubakar remains electorally relevant.
The more accurate description is:
2027 is presently a three-cornered presidential contest in which Obi has the greatest potential for expansion, Atiku has the deepest established northern base, and Tinubu possesses the strongest institutional structure.
The election will be decided by which candidate can solve the fundamental Nigerian electoral equation:
TURNOUT + GEOGRAPHIC SPREAD + ORGANISATION + VOTE PROTECTION + NATIONAL APPEAL.
Not social-media popularity. Not rallies. Not opinion polls alone. Not governors alone. And certainly not assumptions about what Nigerians “have already decided.”
- The Final CCS Warning
The circulating analysis contains one particularly important insight: the protection of votes will matter.
CCS agrees.
But this should not be framed as an Obi-only problem. Every serious candidate must protect his votes.
The real democratic challenge for 2027 is to ensure that the vote cast by every Nigerian — whether for Tinubu, Atiku, Obi, Kwankwaso’s ticket or another candidate — is accurately recorded, transmitted, collated and declared.
Nigeria does not need another election in which political camps spend months arguing about whether the declared result represents the actual votes of Nigerians.
The 2027 election must therefore be won at the polling unit, documented at the polling unit, protected at the polling unit and verifiably transmitted through every stage of the collation process.
That is the real lesson of 2023. And that is where the battle for 2027 will ultimately be fought.
CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY STUDIES — CCS OBSERVATORY
Our preliminary judgement is therefore neither “Obi has won” nor “Tinubu will return” nor “Atiku will dominate the North.”
Our judgement is that the political battlefield has changed sufficiently since 2023 to make all three propositions contestable.
Obi has a realistic pathway to substantially expand his 2023 vote. Atiku has a realistic pathway to consolidate or increase his northern vote. Tinubu has a realistic pathway to remain competitive through incumbency and organisational strength.
But none of the three has yet demonstrated the complete national coalition required to claim inevitability.
The 2027 presidential election will not be won by the candidate with the loudest supporters. It will be won by the candidate who converts the largest and broadest coalition of Nigerians into actual, protected and legally valid votes.
Yusuf Musa
Centre for Contemporary Studies (CCS)
Abuja, Nigeria
(Posting from Gwandu in Sokoto State)
September 6, 2026
07035008532
Editorial note: This article is published in The Atlantic Digest’s Pulse section as submitted, credited in full to its author, Yusuf Musa, Chairman/Chief Executive of the Centre for Contemporary Studies (CCS), Abuja. It is reproduced here in its entirety, with no content removed or added, as an outside contribution reflecting the views and analysis of the author and CCS, not the independent reporting of The Atlantic Digest’s news desks.
