OPINION; TINUBU HIMSELF KNOWS HE WILL LOSE 2027 BUT HE WILL FIGHT DIRTY.

By Aare Amerijoye DOT.B

This is not a warning whispered in fear. It is a verdict spoken in arithmetic.

Tinubu’s defenders keep chanting “incumbency.” Tinubu’s own political instincts, honed in the dark arts of coalition building, are chanting something else: “the map is cracking.” And when a sitting president begins to read the map like a man looking for exits, what follows is rarely persuasion; it is usually pressure, manipulation, and dirty resistance.

Power senses its expiry before the public does. And power panics when numbers stop obeying.

Let us ground this in data, regional history, and the new coalition reality now forming around ADC (with fresh reports of high-profile defections and alignment), proceeding on the clear electoral understanding that winning a state or zone refers strictly to scoring the highest number of votes there, while the constitutional 25 percent requirement relates only to spread and qualification, not to winning that state or zone.

Politics begins where illusion ends. Arithmetic begins where propaganda fails.

The national baseline: what Tinubu won with in 2023, and why it is fragile in 2027

Every empire recites its founding myth. Serious analysts interrogate the balance sheet.

In 2023, final INEC tallies put the top-three as:

Tinubu: 8,794,726 (about 36.6%)

Atiku: 6,984,520 (about 29.1%)

Obi: about 6.1m (about 25.4%)

Turnout was low, around 26.71%, which matters because incumbents who preside over hardship often survive through low turnout plus fragmented opposition, not through love.

Low turnout is the oxygen of unpopular governments.

Now the real story is not “Tinubu once won.” The real story is: where his votes came from, where they collapsed, and where the opposition is now converging.

History does not ask who once won. History asks who can still win.

SOUTH EAST: APC’S ELECTORAL BLACK HOLE (and why it stays sealed in 2027)

Some defeats are recoverable. Others are existential.

2023 hard numbers (South East – 5 states total)

Tinubu: 127,370 (5.72%) — 0 of 5 states won

Atiku: 90,968 (4.09%) — 0 of 5 states won

Obi: 1,952,998 (87.78%) — 5 of 5 states won (Anambra, Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo)

Total valid votes (zone): 2,224,934

This is not “weakness.” This is political quarantine. APC is not merely unpopular in the South East; it is structurally non-competitive. The zone did not just vote against Tinubu; it voted as though APC did not exist.

When a party is erased psychologically, ballots merely formalise the burial.

Why this locks Tinubu out in 2027

A presidential path requires dominance in multiple zones and competitiveness in others. But Tinubu enters 2027 with one zone already behaving like a closed border.

No president has ever governed Nigeria while being electorally exiled from an entire region.

And now, the South East’s mobilisation networks are no longer just emotional; they are becoming institutional, with reports of migration into ADC structures.

Emotion wins protests. Institutions win elections.

SOUTH WEST: TINUBU’S HOME TURF—HUGE, BUT NOT INFINITE

Even empires have homelands. Homelands alone do not build nations.

2023 hard numbers (South West – 6 states total)

Tinubu: 2,279,407 (53.59%) — 4 of 6 states won (Ekiti, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo)

Atiku: 941,941 (22.15%) — 1 of 6 states won (Osun)

Obi: 846,478 (19.90%) — 1 of 6 states won (Lagos)

Total valid votes (zone): 4,253,442

Yes, this remains Tinubu’s strongest region. But here is the trap: even home turf is no longer monolithic, and a fortress begins to crack the moment its symbolic capital slips.

Presidency is not awarded for loyalty of neighbours but for consent of strangers.

The loss of Lagos, Tinubu’s political base, Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, and the most psychologically significant state in the South West, to Obi, alongside Atiku’s capture of Osun, is not a statistical footnote; it is a political signal. It demonstrates that hardship can override identity, that protest can defeat incumbency even at home, and that the South West’s loyalty is neither mystical nor permanent.

Transactions get renegotiated when hunger enters the room.

Tinubu can still top the South West and still lose Nigeria.

You cannot govern a federation from one geopolitical address.

SOUTH SOUTH: THE BATTLE ZONE—WHERE APC’S “SECOND PLACE” CAN TURN TO THIRD

Swing zones punish arrogance faster than opposition.

2023 hard numbers (South South – 6 states total)

Tinubu: 799,957 (27.99%) — 1 of 6 states won (Rivers)

Atiku: 717,908 (25.12%) — 2 of 6 states won (Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa)

Obi: 1,210,675 (42.37%) — 3 of 6 states won (Cross River, Delta, Edo)

Total valid votes (zone): 2,857,640

Second place in a swing zone is not security; it is vulnerability disguised as relevance.

Historically, the South South reacts sharply to economic injustice, resource control debates, and federal neglect narratives.

And this government has supplied all three in abundance.

With elite and grassroots forces reorganising under ADC, Tinubu’s corridor here is narrowing.

NORTH EAST: ATIKU’S HOME ADVANTAGE—AND THE “VP FROM BORNO” LIMIT

2023 hard numbers (North East – 6 states total)

Tinubu: 1,185,458 (34.50%) — 1 of 6 states won (Borno)

Atiku: 1,737,846 (50.58%) — 5 of 6 states won (Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Taraba, Yobe)

Obi: 315,107 (9.17%) — 0 states won

Atiku won the zone decisively.

Even with a vice-presidential candidate from Borno, Tinubu could not flip the region.

Damage control does not win elections.

NORTH WEST: THE LARGEST VOTER BLOCS—AND TINUBU’S MOST DANGEROUS FRONT

2023 hard numbers (North West – 7 states total)

Tinubu: 2,652,235 (39.64%) — 2 of 7 states won (Jigawa, Zamfara)

Atiku: 2,329,540 (34.82%) — 4 of 7 states won (Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto)

Kwankwaso: 1,268,250 (18.96%) — 1 of 7 states won (Kano)

Plurality collapses the moment opposition converges.

NORTH CENTRAL: THE KINGMAKER ZONE—WHERE TINUBU WON, BUT NOT BY LOVE

2023 hard numbers (North Central – 6 states + FCT)

Tinubu: 1,760,993 (38.58%) — 4 of 6 states won (Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Niger)

Obi: 1,415,577 (31.01%) — 2 of 6 states won (Nasarawa, Plateau) + FCT

Atiku: 1,162,087 (25.46%) — 0 states won

Split zones decide presidents.

So why will Tinubu “fight dirty”?

South East: 0 of 5

North East: 1 of 6

North West: 2 of 7

North Central: 4 of 6

South South: 1 of 6

South West: 4 of 6

This is not the map of a confident incumbent.

ATIKU–OBI COMBINATION VS APC INCUMBENCY — THE 2027 SIGNAL

Now read the map one last time, stripped of sentiment.

In 2023, despite APC controlling the presidency and governing many states, seven APC-governed states still voted against APC at the presidential level.

APC-governed states won by Atiku:Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Yobe

APC-governed states won by Obi:Lagos, Nasarawa, Plateau

That is seven states where incumbency failed outright.

Combine this with the broader picture:

Atiku votes: 6,984,520

Obi votes: ≈6,101,533

Combined: over 13 million votes

Combine the states:

Atiku states won: 12

Obi states won: 11 + FCT

Combined: 23 states + FCT

APC, by contrast, won 12 states, while in power.

What does this tell us about 2027?

It tells us that incumbent governors no longer guarantee presidential obedience. It tells us that suffering voters are willing to cross party lines. And it tells us that if fragmentation alone produced this outcome in 2023, convergence in 2027 would be decisive.

Atiku supplies national spread, northern depth, and institutional reach. Obi supplies southern consolidation, youth energy, urban momentum, and moral clarity. APC supplies incumbency, but an incumbency already rejected in its own territories.

This is not a theory. It is a pattern.

And patterns, in politics, are warnings.

Aare Amerijoye DOT.B

Director General,

The Narrative Force